Leadbelly

American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter

• Born: January 29, 1885
• Birthplace: Mooringsport, Louisiana
• Died: December 6, 1949
• Place of death: New York, New York

A profound influence on American popular music from blues to jazz to rock and roll, Leadbelly was known for writing and adapting songs in many traditions, including work songs, country ballads, folk songs, spirituals, blues, and children’s songs.

The Life

Leadbelly (LEHD-beh-lee) was born Hudson William Ledbetter to sharecroppers John Wesley and Sallie Ledbetter in Mooringsport, Louisiana. When Leadbelly was still a boy, his father acquired land in Harrison County, Texas, and there his son learned to pick cotton, chop wood, and ride horses.

Leadbelly showed an early interest in music, playing the accordion as a child. He attended school, learning to read and write at a time when literacy was not yet the norm among the rural black population in Texas. He quit school after the eighth grade to work on the farm. As a teenager Leadbelly received two gifts from his parents that would shape much of his life: a guitar and a pistol.

Leadbelly first played guitar and mandolin with friends and relatives, but soon he was performing at house parties and country dances, learning the repertoire of local musicians and honing his technique. At sixteen he left home and spent two years in Shreveport, Louisiana. On Fannin Street, the subject of a song he later wrote, Leadbelly was exposed not only to emerging blues music but also women, dancing, gambling, and violence.

Although Leadbelly had had a reputation for fighting, drinking, and womanizing for some time, he got into his first bout of serious trouble in 1915. Though the circumstances are murky, he was convicted of carrying a gun and sentenced to thirty days on a chain gang. After serving only three days, he escaped, moved to northeast Texas, and took the name Walter Boyd.

Leadbelly did not stay out of trouble for long. In February, 1918, he was convicted of the murder of Will Stafford and sentenced to seven to thirty years in prison. After a failed escape attempt, Leadbelly decided that good behavior was his only hope for early release. He earned a reputation as a strong worker and a compelling musician. In 1924, when he was invited to play for visiting Texas governor Pat Neff, Leadbelly composed and performed a pardon song, pleading for his release. Just before the end of his term in office in 1925, Neff granted Leadbelly a full pardon, and he was released from prison.

Upon his release, Leadbelly returned to Louisiana. He did manual labor in the daytime and played in bars at night. Escaping several violent encounters over the next few years, Leadbelly landed in serious trouble again in 1930. Accused of attacking and nearly killing a white man, he was sentenced to six to ten years of hard labor at Angola State Prison.

Though conditions at Angola were miserable, Leadbelly was a model prisoner. In 1932 he sought early release from the Louisiana Board of Pardons. In 1933 John Lomax of the Library of Congress visited Angola State Prison, hoping to record traditional African American work songs. The warden recommended Leadbelly, who recorded seven songs during Lomax’s visit.

Lomax and his son Alan returned to Angola in 1934 to gather more recordings. Leadbelly made a special recording for governor Oscar Allen of Louisiana in which he pleaded for his release once again. Lomax delivered the recording to the governor’s office, and Leadbelly was released on August 1, 1934. Legend has it that the recording was responsible, but Allen claimed that Leadbelly was released under the double good time rule used to combat overcrowding in prisons.

After his release, Leadbelly traveled extensively with Lomax, serving as his driver and demonstrating to other musicians the recording process Lomax used during field sessions. Lomax acted as Leadbelly’s manager, arranging concerts and radio appearances and collecting many of his songs for the Library of Congress. Slowly mistrust grew between Leadbelly and Lomax until the relationship soured and they parted ways.

In March, 1939, Leadbelly was arrested for stabbing a man in New York. This time he served an eight-month sentence. Upon his release, Leadbelly recorded for RCA Victor and appeared on his own weekly radio show for WNYC. In late 1941 he began working with Moses Asch of Asch Records (later Folkways), who became his new agent.

In 1944 Leadbelly moved to the West Coast for two years, in search of a movie career. Although he performed and recorded, a movie deal never materialized, and he returned to New York in 1946.

While on tour in Paris in May, 1949, Leadbelly sought medical attention for numbness in his legs. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive, degenerative condition. He managed a few last performances before he was no longer able to play. He died in December, 1949, at the age of sixty-three at Bellevue Hospital in New York.

The Music

Leadbelly’s style incorporated so many musical traditions that it is difficult to categorize. Though he could play many instruments, including piano, mandolin, harmonica, and accordion, he most often played a Stella twelve-string guitar. His early experiences with music were in his rural community, where he was exposed to old country, cowboy songs, murder ballads, dance tunes, work songs, spirituals, and folk songs.

“Pick a Bale of Cotton” and “Cotton Fields.” Several of Leadbelly’s songs were reminiscent of his early life on his parents’ farm. He developed “Pick a Bale of Cotton” out of work songs that he learned as a child in the fields. Both in and out of prison, Leadbelly had a reputation for being able to pick large volumes of cotton in a day. In 1945, while in California, Leadbelly was filmed playing “Pick a Bale of Cotton,” and it is one of a few moving images of him ever recorded. “Cotton Fields” is a song about his rural childhood in Texas and Louisiana. When the Highwaymen covered it in 1961, it reached the Top 40 on the Billboard charts.

“Midnight Special.” Leadbelly spent a significant portion of his life in prison. Music not only helped him pass the time but it also gained him special status among the prisoners, guards, and wardens. The Midnight Special was an inmate nickname for a train that ran west from Houston and passed near Sugar Land Prison every night. Although Leadbelly was not the originator of “Midnight Special,” he modified and popularized it. His version is a bleak commentary on prison life. The song was later recorded by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Leadbelly was in his mid-forties when he met John Lomax in 1933 and already a seasoned vocalist and guitar player. His first recordings with Lomax demonstrated his varied repertoire: “The Western Cowboy,” “Take a Whiff on Me,” “Angola Blues,” “Frankie and Albert,” “You Can’t Lose-a-Me, Cholly,” “Ella Speed,” and “Goodnight Irene.” Although Leadbelly wrote some original songs, he often developed new arrangements of songs he learned from other musicians. Once he modified them, they often differed significantly from the originals.

“Goodnight Irene.” This slow, mournful waltz was Leadbelly’s adaptation of a song called “Irene, Goodnight” that he learned from his uncle, originally penned by African American songwriter Gussie L. Davis. Over the years Leadbelly continued to modify “Goodnight Irene,” eventually adding six verses. The year after his death, the Weavers’ cover titled “Goodnight, Irene” reached number one on the Billboard charts. It was subsequently recorded by Frank Sinatra; Ernest Tubb and Red Foley; Johnny Cash; Nat King Cole; Peter, Paul, and Mary; Tom Waits; and others.

In March, 1940, Leadbelly met Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger at a concert to benefit California migrant workers. Seeger and Guthrie introduced Leadbelly to the radical political scene where he met Burl Ives, Josh White, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee. Although Leadbelly largely shied away from involvement in politics, he wrote several civil rights songs.

“Bourgeois Blues.” Race was a complicated issue for Leadbelly. Over the course of his career, many of Leadbelly’s strongest supporters and allies were white men and women, and his music was often in greater demand among white audiences. Nevertheless, Leadbelly often experienced racism in his travels, frequently in response to seeing a black man traveling with white companions. He recorded “Bourgeois Blues,” which recounted a trip to Washington, D.C., during which he could not find a hotel or a restaurant that would serve his party because he was in a mixed-race group. He wrote several other protest songs, including “Jim Crow Blues” and “The Scottsboro Boys.” Children’s Songs. On several occasions, Leadbelly had the opportunity to perform for children, something he particularly enjoyed. Though he had a reputation for being rough and quick-tempered, he was more often gentle, and children loved him. In these appearances he played songs that accompanied old-fashioned children’s games. In 1941 he recorded for Asch a collection of children’s songs called Play Parties in Song and Dance, which included “Ha Ha Thisaway” and “Redbird.”

Musical Legacy

Leadbelly’s exhaustive recordings with the Lomaxes and Asch give a glimpse into Southern rural musical traditions that predate recorded music. While Leadbelly enjoyed some popularity in his lifetime, his importance to the American music tradition was only fully appreciated after his death. Although he performed and recorded tirelessly, he never made more than a meager living.

Leadbelly’s influence touched musicians from Blind Lemon Jefferson, who became the first male blues star in 1926, to Kurt Kobain, who recorded Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” in 1993. Guthrie and Seeger, both strongly influenced by Leadbelly, were committed to educating others about Leadbelly’s greatness. They passed his influence along to the folk revivalists and rock musicians of the 1960’s. Leadbelly has been covered by a wide variety of musicians, including Guthrie, Seeger, the Weavers, Cash, the Grateful Dead, Abba, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Waits, Michelle Shocked, Tubb, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Rod Stewart, the Doors, Karen Dalton, Ry Cooder, the White Stripes, and countless others. In 1988 Leadbelly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Principal Recordings

albums:Negro Sinful Songs, 1939; Midnight Special, 1940; Play Parties in Song and Dance, 1941; Leadbelly Sings and Plays, 1951; Last Session, 1953; Leadbelly Sings, 1962; Ledbetter’s Best, 1963; Good Night Irene, 1964; Take This Hammer, 1965; Ballads of Beautiful Women and Bad Men, 1973; Let It Shine on Me, 1989; Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In, 1991; Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, 1994; The Titanic, 1994; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 1: 1939-1940, 1995; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 2: 1940-1943, 1995; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3: 1943-1944, 1995; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 4: 1944, 1995; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 5: 1944-1946, 1995; Go Down Old Hannah, 1995; Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 6: 1947, 1998; Leadbelly, Vol. 1, 1934-1935: The Remaining ARC and Library of Congress Recordings, 2000; Leadbelly, Vol. 2, 1935: The Remaining Library of Congress Recordings, 2000; Black Folk Singers: Leadbelly, Josh White, 1937-1946, 2005 (with Josh White); Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 7: 1947-1949, 2006.

singles: “Goodnight Irene,” 1933; “Becky Deem, She Was a Gamblin’ Gal,” 1935; “Honey I’m All Out and Down,” 1935;“If It Wasn’t for Dicky,” 1935; “Jefferson’s Match Box Blues,” 1935; “Good Morning Blues,” 1940; “On a Monday,” 1943 (with Sonny Terry); “Rock Island Line,” 1949.

Bibliography

Cowley, John H. “Don’t Leave Me Here: Non-Commercial Blues, the Field Trips, 1924-1960.” In Nothing but the Blues: The Music and the Musicians, edited by Lawrence Cohn. New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. This essay gives a chronological account of the relationship between Leadbelly and Lomax, starting in Angola Prison and continuing through their work together over the next several years. It contains performance and recording details.

Eder, Bruce. “Leadbelly.” In All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues. 3d ed. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003. This essay provides biographical and recording history with detailed descriptions of many of Leadbelly’s albums.

Ledbetter, Huddie. Leadbelly: No Stranger to the Blues. Transcriptions by Harry Lewman. New York: Folkways Music, 1998. A great resource for musicians, this collection of sheet music includes transcriptions from Leadbelly’s original recordings for the Library of Congress, ARC, Capitol Records, Musicraft, RCA Records, and Smithsonian Folkways Records.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Leadbelly Songbook: The Ballads, Blues, and Folksongs of Huddie Ledbetter. Edited by Moses Asch and Alan Lomax. New York: Oak, 1962. A collection of sheet music with writings by musicians and journalists who knew him, edited by one of his greatest collaborators.

Lomax, John A., Alan Lomax, and George Herzog. Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly. New York: Macmillan, 1936. This rare book contains transcriptions of many of the songs recorded by John and Alan Lomax and is considered the first comprehensive biographical study of an American folk musician.

Wolfe, Charles, and Kip Lornell. The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. New York: Da Capo Press, 1992. An in-depth biographical study that covers Leadbelly’s early life, his musical career, and his influence on modern American music.