On the Road Again Led Belly

American folk and blues musician

"Leadbelly" redirects here. For the biographical film on this person, see Leadbelly (film).

Pb Belly
Lead Abdomen with a melodeon c. 1942
Groundwork information
Nativity proper name	Huddie William Ledbetter
Also known equally	Lead Belly, Leadbelly
Born	(1888-01-23)January 23, 1888[1] Mooringsport, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	December 6, 1949(1949-12-06) (aged 61) New York City, U.S.
Genres	Folk blues folk gospel songster
Occupation(s)	Musician songwriter
Instruments	Vocals guitar accordion piano lap steel guitar
Years active	1903–1949
Website	leadbelly.org

Musical creative person

Huddie William Ledbetter (; Jan 23, 1888 – December 6, 1949),^[1] better known by the stage name Pb Belly, was an American folk and blues singer, musician, and songwriter notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines", "Goodnight, Irene", "Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil".

Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he too played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and windjammer.^[2] In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his easily or stomping his foot.

Pb Abdomen's songs covered a wide range of genres and topics including gospel music; blues about women, liquor, prison life, and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison house, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He as well wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, Jack Johnson, the Scottsboro Boys and Howard Hughes. Lead Belly was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008.

Though many releases credit him as "Leadbelly", he himself wrote information technology equally "Lead Belly", which is also the spelling on his tombstone^{[3] [4]} and the spelling used by the Pb Abdomen Foundation.^[5]

Biography [edit]

Personal life [edit]

Lead Belly's draft registration card in 1942 (Series NUMBER U2214 and address listed every bit 604 Eastward 9TH ST., N.Y. N. Y.)

The younger of 2 children, Lead Belly was born Huddie William Ledbetter to Sallie Brown and Wesley Ledbetter on a plantation nigh Mooringsport, Louisiana.^[vi] On his Earth War II draft registration card in 1942, he gave his birthplace every bit Freeport, Louisiana ("Shreveport"). In that location is uncertainty over his precise date and year of birth. The Pb Belly Foundation gives his birth date as Jan 20, 1889,^[vii] his grave mark gives the yr 1889, and his 1942 draft registration carte states January 23, 1889. However, the 1900 United states of america Census lists "Hudy Ledbetter" every bit 12 years erstwhile, built-in January 1888, and the 1910 and 1930 censuses besides give his age as corresponding to a birth in 1888. The 1940 demography lists his age as 51, with data supplied past wife Martha. The books Dejection: A Regional Experience by Hawkeye and LeBlanc and Encyclopedia of Louisiana Musicians by Tomko requite January 23, 1888,^{[1] [viii]} while the Encyclopedia of the Dejection gives January 20, 1888.^[9]

His parents had cohabited for several years, but they legally married on February 26, 1888. When Huddie was five years one-time, the family settled in Bowie Canton, Texas. The 1910 census of Harrison County, Texas, shows "Hudy Ledbetter" living next door to his parents with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson. Aletha is registered as age nineteen and married one year. Others say she was 15 when they married in 1908. It was in Texas that Ledbetter received his first instrument, an squeeze box, from his uncle Terrell. By his early twenties, having fathered at to the lowest degree two children, Ledbetter left domicile to make his living as a guitarist and occasional laborer.

Music career [edit]

By 1903, Huddie was already a "musicianer",^{[10] : 28} a vocaliser and guitarist of some note. He performed for nearby Shreveport audiences in St. Paul'due south Bottoms, a notorious reddish-calorie-free commune there. He began to develop his ain mode of music after exposure to various musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms, at present referred to equally Ledbetter Heights. Between 1915 and 1939, Ledbetter served several prison house and jail terms for a variety of criminal charges. He was "discovered" in prison during a visit by folklorists John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax xxx years after his music career started.^[xi]After i prison release in 1934, the United States was in the Keen Depression, and jobs were scarce. In September of that yr, in need of regular piece of work in order to avoid cancellation of his release from prison, Lead Belly asked John Lomax to take him on as a commuter. For three months, he assisted the 67-year-old in his folk vocal collecting around the South. Alan Lomax, his son, was ill and did not accompany him on this trip. While in prison, Lead Abdomen may have first heard the traditional prison song "Midnight Special".^{[12] [ page needed ]}

Deeply impressed by Ledbetter's vibrant tenor and extensive repertoire, the Lomaxes recorded him in 1933 on portable aluminum disc recording equipment for the Library of Congress. They returned with new and better equipment in July 1934, recording hundreds of his songs. On August one, Ledbetter was released afterwards having again served nearly all of his minimum sentence, following a petition the Lomaxes had taken to Louisiana Governor Oscar Thou. Allen at his urgent request. Information technology was on the other side of a recording of his signature song, "Goodnight Irene".^{[ clarification needed ]}

A prison official later wrote to John Lomax denying that Ledbetter's singing had anything to do with his release from Angola (country prison house records confirm he was eligible for early release due to practiced behavior). However, both Ledbetter and the Lomaxes believed that the record they had taken to the governor had hastened his release from prison.

In December 1934, Lead Abdomen participated in a "smoker" (group sing) at a Modernistic Language Association meeting at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where the senior Lomax had a prior lecturing appointment. He was written upward in the press as a captive who had sung his fashion out of prison house. On New year's day, 1935, the pair arrived in New York Urban center, where Lomax was scheduled to meet with his publisher, Macmillan, near a new collection of folk songs. The newspapers were eager to write about the "singing captive", and Time mag made i of its first March of Time newsreels almost him. Atomic number 82 Abdomen attained fame—although not fortune.

On January 23–25, 1935, Lead Abdomen had the first of several recording sessions with American Tape Corporation (ARC). These sessions, combined with ii others on Feb 5 and March 25, yielded 53 takes. Of those recordings, only six were e'er released during Atomic number 82 Belly's lifetime. ARC decided to simultaneously release these songs on 6 different labels they owned: Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, and Paramount.^{[10] : 159–60, 292–95} Unfortunately, these recordings achieved little commercial success. Part of the reason for the poor sales may have been that ARC released simply his blues songs rather than the folk songs for which he would later get better known. Pb Belly continued to struggle financially. Like many performers, what income he made during his career would come up from touring, not from record sales. In February 1935, he married his girlfriend, Martha Promise, who came Northward from Louisiana to join him.

The calendar month of February was spent recording his repertoire and those of other African Americans and interviews about his life with Alan Lomax for their forthcoming volume, Negro Folk Songs Equally Sung by Lead Abdomen (1936). Concert appearances were slow to materialize. In March 1935, Atomic number 82 Belly accompanied John Lomax on a previously scheduled ii-calendar week lecture tour of colleges and universities in the Northeast, culminating at Harvard.

At the end of the month, John Lomax decided he could no longer piece of work with Atomic number 82 Belly and gave him and Martha money to get back to Louisiana by bus. He gave Martha the money her hubby had earned during iii months of performing, merely in installments, on the pretext Lead Belly would spend information technology all on drinking if given a lump sum. From Louisiana, Atomic number 82 Belly successfully sued Lomax for both the total amount and release from his management contract. The quarrel was biting, with hard feelings on both sides. Curiously, in the midst of the legal wrangling, Lead Belly wrote to Lomax proposing they team up over again, but it was not to be. Further, the book about Lead Abdomen published by the Lomaxes in the fall of the following year proved a commercial failure.^{[ citation needed ]}

In January 1936, Pb Belly returned to New York on his own, without John Lomax, in an attempted comeback. He performed twice a mean solar day at Harlem'southward Apollo Theater during the Easter season in a live dramatic recreation of the March of Time newsreel (itself a recreation) nearly his prison encounter with John Lomax, where he had worn stripes, though by this fourth dimension he was no longer associated with Lomax.

Lead Belly at the National Printing Club in Washington, D.C. between 1938 and 1948

Life magazine ran a three-page article titled "Pb Abdomen: Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel" in its consequence of Apr 19, 1937. It included a total-page, color (rare in those days) picture of him sitting on grain sacks playing his guitar and singing.^[thirteen] Also included was a striking picture of Martha Promise (identified in the article every bit his manager) and photos showing Lead Belly'due south hands playing the guitar (with the explanation "these hands once killed a man"), Texas Governor Pat K. Neff, and the "ramshackle" Texas Land Penitentiary. The article attributes both of his pardons to his singing of his petitions to the governors, who were so moved that they pardoned him. The text of the article ends with "he... may well be on the brink of a new and prosperous flow."

Pb Belly failed to stir the enthusiasm of Harlem audiences. Instead, he attained success playing at concerts and benefits for an audience of folk music aficionados. He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture having learned from his participation in Lomax'south college lectures. He was especially successful with his repertoire of children's game songs (equally a younger man in Louisiana he had sung regularly at children'south birthday parties in the black community). He was written about as a heroic figure by the black novelist Richard Wright in the columns of the Daily Worker, of which Wright was the Harlem editor. The ii men became personal friends, though some say Atomic number 82 Belly himself was apolitical, and later was a supporter of Wendell Willkie, the centrist Republican candidate for president, for whom he wrote a campaign song. However, he also wrote the song "Bourgeois Blues", which has radical or left-wing lyrics.

In 1939, Pb Belly returned to prison house. Alan Lomax, then 24, took him nether his fly and helped enhance money for his legal expenses, dropping out of graduate schoolhouse to do so. After his release, Lead Belly appeared every bit a regular on Lomax and Nicholas Ray's groundbreaking CBS radio show Back Where I Come From, circulate nationwide. He also appeared in nightclubs with Josh White, becoming a fixture in New York Urban center's surging folk music scene and befriending the likes of Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, all boyfriend performers on Back Where I Come From. During the first half of the decade, he recorded for the Library of Congress, and Moe Asch (future founder of Folkways Records) and in 1944 went to California, where he recorded strong sessions for Capitol Records. He lodged with a studio guitar thespian on Merrywood Drive in Laurel Canyon. Atomic number 82 Belly was the first American country dejection musician to achieve success in Europe.^[14]

In 1940, Lead Belly recorded for one of the biggest tape companies at the fourth dimension, RCA Victor. These sessions were held on June 15 and 17, with the Golden Gate Quartet accompanying some songs. The recordings resulted in the album, The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs, existence issued by Victor Records, which contained extensive notes and vocal texts prepared by Alan Lomax. According to Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, "it was ane of the finest public presentations of Leadbelly's music: well recorded, well advertised, well documented. And the album justified its reputation as a landmark in African American folk music."^{[10] : 220–22, 298–300} Several of the recordings from these sessions were also issued as singles past Bluebird Records.^[fifteen]

In 1941, Atomic number 82 Abdomen was introduced to Moses "Moe" Asch past mutual friends. Asch owned a recording studio and small record characterization, which mainly released folk records for the local New York City market.^{[sixteen] : 22–23} Between 1941 and 1944, Pb Abdomen released 3 albums under the Asch Recordings label.^{[x] : 225–26, 304–07}

In 1949, Pb Belly had a regular radio show, Folk Songs of America, circulate on station WNYC in New York, on Henrietta Yurchenco's show on Sunday nights. Later in the year he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but vicious ill earlier its completion and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's illness (a motor neuron illness).^[eleven] His last concert was at the Academy of Texas at Austin in a tribute to his former mentor, John Lomax, who had died the previous year. Martha also performed at that concert, singing spirituals with her hubby.

Lead Belly died later that twelvemonth in New York City and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery, in Mooringsport, Louisiana, eight miles (13 km) westward of Blanchard, in Caddo Parish.^[3] He is honored with a statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse, in Shreveport.

Legal issues [edit]

Lead Belly inside the Angola Prison, July 1934

Lead Belly was imprisoned multiple times get-go in 1915 when he was bedevilled of carrying a pistol and sentenced to time on the Harrison County concatenation gang. He subsequently escaped and found work in nearby Bowie County under the assumed name of Walter Boyd. Later on, in January 1918, he was imprisoned at the Imperial Farm (now Key Unit of measurement)^[17] in Sugar Land, Texas, later on killing one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fight over a adult female. During his second prison term, another inmate stabbed him in the neck (leaving him with a fearsome scar he afterward covered with a bandana); Atomic number 82 Belly nearly killed his attacker with his own knife.^[fourteen]

In 1925 he was pardoned and released after writing a song to Governor Pat Morris Neff seeking his freedom, having served the minimum seven years of a 7-to-35-year judgement. Combined with his good behavior, which included entertaining the guards and fellow prisoners, his entreatment to Neff's strong religious behavior proved sufficient. It was a testament to his persuasive powers, equally Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (the merely recourse for prisoners, since in nigh Southern prisons there was no provision for parole).^[18] Subsequently their initial meeting in 1924, Neff came back several times and regularly brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter perform.^{[x] : 85}

In 1930, Ledbetter was sentenced to Louisiana Country Penitentiary after a summary trial for attempted homicide for stabbing a man in a fight. In 1939, Lead Belly served his final jail term for assault afterwards stabbing a human in a fight in Manhattan.

Nicknamed "Lead Belly" [edit]

There are several conflicting stories about how Ledbetter acquired the nickname "Pb Abdomen", merely he probably acquired it while in prison. Some claim his fellow inmates called him "Lead Abdomen" as a play on his family proper name and his physical toughness. Others say he earned the name afterwards being wounded in the tummy with buckshot.^[14] Another theory is that the name refers to his power to drink moonshine, the bootleg liquor that Southern farmers, black and white, made to supplement their incomes.^{[ citation needed ]}

Blues singer Big Neb Broonzy thought it came from a supposed trend to lie most every bit if "with a stomach weighted down by lead" in the shade when the chain gang was supposed to be working.^[19] Nevertheless another theory is that information technology may be a corruption of his concluding proper noun pronounced with a Southern emphasis.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Technique [edit]

Lead Abdomen styled himself "King of the Twelve-String Guitar", and despite his use of other instruments similar the piano accordion, the most enduring paradigm of Lead Belly equally a performer is wielding his unusually large Stella twelve-string.^[twenty] This guitar had a slightly longer scale length than a standard guitar, increasing the tension on the instrument, which, given the added tension of the six extra strings, meant that a trapeze-fashion tailpiece was needed to assist resist bridge lifting. It had slotted tuners and ladder bracing.

Lead Abdomen played with finger picks much of the fourth dimension, using a thumb selection to provide walking bass lines described every bit "tricky" and "inventive"^[21] and occasionally to strum.^{[ citation needed ]} This technique, combined with depression tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. In fact, scholars have suggested much of his guitar playing was inspired equally by barrelhouse piano and the Mexican Bajo sexto, an instrument he encountered in Texas and Louisiana.^[22]

Atomic number 82 Belly's tunings are debated past both modernistic and gimmicky musicians and dejection enthusiasts alike — exacerbated past the lack of moving-picture show footage of his performing rendering chord decoding hard — but it seems to exist a down-tuned variant of standard tuning; information technology is likely that he tuned his guitar strings relative to 1 some other, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Such down-tuning was a mutual technique before the development of truss rods, and was intended to prevent the instrument's cervix from warping. Lead Belly'south playing style was popularized past Pete Seeger, who adopted the twelve-string guitar in the 1950s and released an instructional LP and book using Lead Belly equally an exemplar of technique.

In some of the recordings in which Lead Belly accompanied himself, he would make an unusual blazon of grunt betwixt his verses, sometimes described as "haah!" Songs such equally "Looky Looky Yonder", "Have This Hammer",^[11] "Linin' Track" and "Julie Ann Johnson" feature this unusual voice. In "Have This Hammer", Lead Belly explained, "Every time the men say, 'Haah,' the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and nosotros sing."^[23] The "haah" sound can be heard in work chants sung by Southern railroad section workers, "gandy dancers", in which it was used to coordinate piece of work crews as they laid and maintained tracks.

Legacy [edit]

In 1976, a biopic titled Leadbelly was released, directed past Gordon Parks and featuring Roger E. Mosley as Pb Belly.

Kurt Cobain promoted the legacy of Lead Belly, and some modern rock audiences owe their familiarity with Lead Belly to Nirvana'southward performance of "Where Did You Sleep Last Nighttime" on a televised concert subsequently released every bit MTV Unplugged in New York.^[24] Cobain refers to his attempt to convince David Geffen to purchase Lead Belly'due south guitar for him in an interval before the song is played. In his notebooks, Cobain listed Lead Abdomen's Final Session Vol. 1 every bit one of the 50 albums about influential in the formation of Nirvana's audio.^[25] It was included in NME's "The 100 Greatest Albums Y'all've Never Heard list".^[26]

Bob Dylan credits Lead Abdomen for getting him into folk music. In his Nobel Prize Lecture, Dylan said "somebody – somebody I'd never seen earlier – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song 'Cotton fiber Fields' on it. And that record inverse my life right and then and in that location. Transported me into a world I'd never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I'd been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must accept played that record a hundred times."^[27] Dylan too pays homage to him in "Vocal to Woody" on his self-titled debut album.

Lonnie Donegan'due south recording of "Stone Isle Line", released equally a unmarried in belatedly 1955, signaled the first of the UK skiffle craze. George Harrison of The Beatles was quoted as proverb, "if in that location was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore no Lead Belly, no Beatles."^[28] In a BBC tribute in 1999, which marked the 50th ceremony of Atomic number 82 Abdomen's death, Van Morrison – while sitting alongside Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones – claimed that the British popular music scene of the 1960s wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Lead Belly'southward influence. "I'd put my money on that," he said. Wood concurred.^[29]

Indian vocalizer Bhupen Hazarika who was in full general influenced by spirituals during his days every bit a educatee in the Usa, transcreated Atomic number 82 Belly'southward singing of "We're in the Same Boat Blood brother" ^[30] into the Assamese language as "Ami ekekhon nawore zatri" (আমি একেখন নাৱৰে যাত্ৰী).^{[31] [32]} Later, he likewise released a Bengali linguistic communication version every bit "Mora jatri eki toronir" (মোরা যাত্রী একই তরণীর).^[33]

In 2001 English-Canadian blues singer Long John Baldry released his final studio album, Remembering Leadbelly. It contains cover versions of Pb Belly songs, and features a half dozen-minute Alan Lomax interview.

George Ezra developed his singing style from trying to sing similar Lead Belly. "On the dorsum of the record, it said his voice was and then large, y'all had to turn your record role player down," Ezra says. "I liked the idea of singing with a big voice, so I tried it, and I could."^[34]

In 2015, in celebration of Lead Belly's 125th birthday, several events were held. The Kennedy Center, in collaboration with the Grammy Museum held Atomic number 82 Abdomen at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster, a musical event featuring Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, and Buddy Miller with Viktor Krauss equally headliners and Dom Flemons equally host, with special appearances by Lucinda Williams, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Billy Hector, Valerie June, Shannon McNally, Josh White Jr., and Dan Zanes, among others ^[35] Also in Washington, D.C., Bourgeois Town: Pb Belly in Washington DC past the Library of Congress was held where Todd Harvey interviewed Lead Belly family unit members about their relative, his contributions to American culture and globe music and an overview of the significant Pb Belly materials in the center's archive ^[36] In London, England, the Royal Albert Hall held Lead Belly Fest, a musical event featuring Van Morrison, Eric Burdon, Jools Holland, Billy Bragg, Paul Jones, and more.^[37]

The Titanic [edit]

Influenced by the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912, Ledbetter wrote the song "The Titanic",^[38] his starting time composition on the twelve-string guitar, which afterwards became his signature instrument. Initially played when performing with Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893–1929) in and around Dallas, Texas, the song is about champion African-American boxer Jack Johnson'south being denied passage on the Titanic. Johnson had in fact been denied passage on a ship for being black, only it was non the Titanic.^[39] Yet, the song includes the lyric "Jack Johnson tried to go on board. The Captain, he says, 'I ain't haulin' no coal!' Fare thee, Titanic! Fare thee well!" Ledbetter later noted he had to exit out this passage when playing in front of white audiences.^[40]

Discography [edit]

Singles [edit]

Release Year	Championship (A-side/B-side)	Label	Itemize Number	Recording Date	Matrix Number	Notes
1935	"All Out and Down" "Packin' Torso"	Banner	33359	January 23, 1935	16688-2 16685-ane	American Record Corporation decided to simultaneously release these songs on six dissimilar labels they endemic
		Melotone	M13326
		Oriole	8438
		Perfect	0314
		Romeo	5438
		Paramount	14006
1935	"Four Day Worry Dejection" "New Blackness Snake Moan"	Imprint	33360	January 23, 1935	16689-2 16691-2	American Record Corporation decided to simultaneously release these songs on six dissimilar labels they owned
		Melotone	M13327
		Oriole	8439
		Perfect	0315
		Romeo	5439
		Paramount	14017
1936	"Becky Deem, She Was a Gamblin' Girl" "Sus scrofa Meat Papa"	Imprint	half dozen-04-55	January 23, 1935 March 25, 1935	16678-1 17181-1	American Record Corporation decided to simultaneously release these songs on six different labels they owned
		Melotone	six-04-55
		Oriole	half-dozen-04-55
		Perfect	half-dozen-04-55
		Romeo	6-04-55
		Paramount	vi-04-55
1940	"Canvas On, Footling Girl, Sail On" "Don't Y'all Love Your Daddy No More?"	Bluebird	B-8550	June 15, 1940 June 17, 1940	051505 051325
1940	"Alberta" "T.B. Blues"	Bluebird	B-8559	June 15, 1940	051507 051503
1940	"Easy Rider" "Worried Blues"	Bluebird	B-8570	June 17, 1940	051322 051324
1941	"Roberta" "The Reddish Cross Shop Blues"	Bluebird	B-8709	June 15, 1940	051506 051504
1941	"New York Urban center" "Yous Tin can't Lose-a Me Cholly"	Bluebird	B-8750	June 17, 1940	051323-1 051326-1
1941	"Good Morning Blues" "Leaving Blues"	Bluebird	B-8791	June 15, 1940	051501 051502
1942	"I'grand on My Last Go-Circular"	Bluebird	B-8981	June xv, 1940	051508-1	This was the b-side to "Thirsty Mama Blues" past the Hot Lips Page Trio
1945[41]	"Rock Island Line" "Hawkeye Rock Rag"	Capitol	10021	October 4, 1944 October 27, 1944	398-3A1 457-2A	Included in the five-disc Capitol Album CE-16, The History of Jazz Vol. one: The 'Solid' South
1946[42]	"Yellowish Gal" "When the Boys Were on the Western Plain"	Musicraft	310	February 17, 1944	5129 5130-1
1946	"Roberta" "John Hardy"	Musicraft	311	February 17, 1944	5126-3 5133
1946	"Where Did Y'all Sleep Last Night?" "In New Orleans"	Musicraft	312	Feb 17, 1944	5128 5132
1946	"Nib Brady" "Pretty Flowers in Your Back Yard"	Musicraft	313	February 17, 1944	5127 5131
1946[43]	"Easy Rider" "Pigmeat"	Disc	5501	June, 1946
1947[44]	"Sweetness Mary Dejection" "Grasshopers in My Pillow"	Capitol	A40038	October 27, 1944	459-2A 460-3A
1948	"Irene" "Backwater Blues"	Capitol	40130	October 11, 1944	413-3A 416-3A
1948[45]	"Excavation My Potatoes" "Defense Blues"	Disc	5085	June, 1946	D-385 D-386

Albums [edit]

Release Yr	Title	Characterization	Catalog Number	Notes
1939	Negro Sinful Songs	Musicraft	Anthology 31
1940	The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs	Victor	P-fifty
1941	Play Parties in Song and Trip the light fantastic toe	Asch
1942	Work Songs of the United states of americaA.	Asch
1944	Songs by Lead Belly	Asch	A-343
1946	Negro Folk Songs	Disc	660
1947	Midnight Special	Disc	726	Featuring Woody Guthrie and Cisco Huston

Posthumous discography [edit]

The Library of Congress recordings [edit]

The Library of Congress recordings, made by John and Alan Lomax from 1934 to 1943, were released in a six-volume series by Rounder Records:

• Midnight Special (1991)
• Gwine Dig a Pigsty to Put the Devil In (1991)
• Let It Shine on Me (1991)
• The Titanic (1994)
• Nobody Knows the Problem I've Seen (1994)
• Go Down Old Hannah (1995)

Folkways recordings [edit]

The Folkways recordings, done for Moses Asch from 1941 to 1947, were released in a three-volume series by Smithsonian Folkways:

• Where Did Y'all Sleep Last Night, Pb Belly Legacy, Vol. ane (1996)
• Bourgeois Blues, Pb Belly Legacy, Vol. 2 (1997)
• Shout On, Lead Abdomen Legacy, Vol. 3 (1998)

Smithsonian Folkways has released several other collections of his recordings:

• Leadbelly Sings Folk Songs (1989)
• Lead Belly'south Concluding Sessions (4-CD box set, 1994), recorded tardily 1948 in New York City;^[46] his only commercial recordings on magnetic tape
• Pb Abdomen Sings for Children (1999)
• Folkways: The Original Vision, Woody Guthrie and Pb Abdomen (2004), expanded version of the 1989 compilation
• Atomic number 82 Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (2015)^{[47] [48]}

Live recordings [edit]

• Leadbelly Recorded in Concert, University of Texas, Austin, June fifteen, 1949 (1973, Playboy Records Lead 119)

Other compilations [edit]

• Huddie Ledbetter's Best (1989, BGO Records), containing recordings made for Capitol Records in 1944 in California
• Male monarch of the 12-String Guitar (1991, Sony/Legacy Records), a collection of dejection songs and prison ballads recorded in 1935 in New York City for the American Record Company, including previously unreleased alternate takes
• Private Political party November 21, 1948 (2000, Document Records), containing Lead Belly'due south intimate performance at a private party in late 1948 in Minneapolis
• Take This Hammer, When the Sunday Goes Down series, vol. 5 (2003, RCA Victor/Bluebird Jazz), CD collection of all 26 songs Lead Belly recorded for Victor Records in 1940, one-half of which characteristic the Gold Gate Jubilee Quartet (a 1968 LP released by RCA Victor included near one-half of these recordings)
• A Leadbelly Memorial, Vol II (1963, Stinson Records, SLP nineteen), red vinyl pressing
• The Definitive Pb Belly (2008, Not Now Music), a l-song retrospective on two CDs
• Leadbelly - American Folk & Blues Album (2013, Non Now Music), 75 songs on 3 CDs
• American Epic: The Best of Lead Belly (2017, Lo-Max, Sony Legacy, Third Homo)

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b c} Hawkeye, Bob; LeBlanc, Eric S. (2013). Blues - A Regional Experience. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishers. p. 301. ISBN978-0313344237.
2. ^ Snyder, Jared (Summer 1994). "Leadbelly and His Windjammer: Examining the African American Button Accordion Tradition". American Music. 12 (two): 148–166. doi:x.2307/3052520. JSTOR 3052520.
3. ^ ^{a b} Huddie William "Pb Belly" Ledbetter at Find a Grave
4. ^ "Delta Blues.net". Archived from the original on September 19, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
5. ^ "Lead Belly Foundation". LeadBelly.org. Archived from the original on Jan 23, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
6. ^ Laberge, Yves (2006). Komara, Edward (ed.). The Blues Encyclopedia. Routledge. pp. 586–587. ISBN0-415-92699-eight.
7. ^ "About Lead Belly", The Lead Abdomen Foundation. Retrieved viii March 2020
8. ^ Tomko, Gene (2020). Encyclopedia of Louisiana Musicians: Jazz, Blues, Cajun, Creole, Zydeco, Swamp Popular, and Gospel. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Academy Printing. p. 155. ISBN9780807169322.
9. ^ Komara, Edward M. (March eight, 2006). Encyclopedia of the Blues. Psychology Printing. ISBN9780415926997 . Retrieved March eight, 2021 – via Google Books.
10. ^ ^{a b c d east} Wolfe, Charles; Lornell, Kip (1992). The Life and Legend of Leadbelly. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN0060168625.
11. ^ ^{a b c} Gilliland, John (May eighteen, 1969). "Show 18 – Blowin' in the Air current: Pop Discovers Folk Music. Office 1". Popular Chronicles. UNT Digital Library, Academy of North Texas, Digital.library.unt.edu. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
12. ^ Lomax, Alan, ed. Folk Vocal USA. New American Library.
13. ^ LIFE - Google Boeken. April 19, 1937. Retrieved Dec 30, 2011.
14. ^ ^{a b c} The Mudcat Cafe. Leadbelly – Rex of the 12 Cord Guitar Archived January ii, 2016, at the Wayback Automobile Retrieved on January 30, 2007
15. ^ UC Santa Barbara Library. "Leadbelly". Discography of American Historical Recordings . Retrieved December 5, 2020.
16. ^ Place, Jeff (2015). "The Life and Legacy of Lead Belly". Pb Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (PDF). Washington: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. ISBN9780970494252. UPC 093074020128.
17. ^ Perkinson, Robert (2010). Texas Tough: The Rise of America'south Prison Empire. Metropolitan Books. 184. ISBN 978-0-8050-8069-eight.
18. ^ "Today in Masonic History". MASONRYTODAY.com. November 26, 2017. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
19. ^ Terkel, Studs (2005). And They All Sang. New Printing.
20. ^ Ohara, Marcus (Nov 22, 2009). "The Unique Guitar Blog: The Stella 12 String Guitar". Uniqueguitar.blogspot.com.
21. ^ Turner 2017-02-23T17:39:36Z, Dale. "12-String King:Pb Belly's Big-Bottom Dejection". Guitarworld.com . Retrieved January 6, 2020.
22. ^ Edward M. Komara. Encyclopedia of the Blues. 2006, Psychology Press, p. 434
23. ^ Lead Belly singing "Take This Hammer" on YouTube. Retrieved January 30, 2008.
24. ^ "Where Did Yous Slumber Last Night". YouTube. January 10, 2011. Archived from the original on November 7, 2021.
25. ^ "Top fifty by Nirvana". Archived from the original on October 18, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
26. ^ "The 100 Greatest Albums You lot've Never Heard". NME. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
27. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016". NobelPrize.org.
28. ^ Catlin, Roger. "The Incomparable Legacy of Atomic number 82 Abdomen". Smithsonian.
29. ^ "Pb Belly has inspired a music generation". Irishexaminer.com. June 10, 2015.
30. ^ "Earl Robinson Sings: Folkways Records FG3545" (PDF). media.smithsonianfolkways.org. 1963.
31. ^ Majaw, Lou; Lyngdoh, Andrew. "We are in the same boat brother..." The Telegraph.
32. ^ Dutta, Pranjal. "The African American Bhupen Hazarika". The Watch.
33. ^ "More jatri eki toronir testo". MTV Testi Canzoni. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
34. ^ "On the Verge: George Ezra arrives past way of 'Budapest'". Usatoday.com.
35. ^ "Lead Abdomen at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster | GRAMMY Museum". Grammymuseum.org.
36. ^ "Conservative Town: Pb Belly in Washington DC". Library of Congress.
37. ^ "Atomic number 82 Abdomen Fest | Purple Albert Hall". Majestic Albert Hall.
38. ^ "The Titanic" by Leadbelly on YouTube
39. ^ Dinerstein, Joel (Apr i, 2003). Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Applied science, and African American Culture . Univ of Massachusetts Printing. p. 124. Retrieved November 18, 2011. Jack Johnson denied access on Titanic.
40. ^ Atomic number 82 Belly's Last Sessions, disc two, track 15, "The Titanic". Smithsonian Folkways.
41. ^ "Advance Tape Releases". Billboard. Vol. 57, no. 39. October 6, 1945. p. 85. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved May thirty, 2021.
42. ^ "Advance Record Releases". Billboard. Vol. 58, no. 15. April thirteen, 1946. p. 124. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
43. ^ "Advance Record Releases". Billboard. Vol. 58, no. 26. June 29, 1946. p. 30. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
44. ^ "Advance Record Releases". Billboard. Vol. 59, no. 35. September 6, 1947. p. 31. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved May 30, 2021.
45. ^ "Accelerate Record Releases". Billboard. Vol. 60, no. vii. February fourteen, 1948. p. 123. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
46. ^ Leadbelly's Last Sessions, vol. 1. Folkways Records (FP 241) U.S.
47. ^ Mazor, Barry (Feb 25, 2015). "Going From Prison Nix to Folk Hero". Wall Street Journal. p. D5.
48. ^ The Smithsonian Folkways Drove, 2015 remastered compilation. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (SFW 40201) U.South.

Sources [edit]

• White, Gary; Stuart, David; Aviva, Elyn (2001). Music in Our World. p. 196. ISBN 0-07-027212-3.
• Wolfe, Charles; Lornell, Kip (1992). The Life and Legend of Leadbelly . New York Metropolis: HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0060168625

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Eatables has media related to Lead Belly.

• The Atomic number 82 Abdomen Foundation
• The Official Pb Belly Website
• "Ledbetter, Huddie (Leadbelly)" in the Handbook of Texas Online
• AllMusic
• Pb Abdomen discography at Discogs
• Discography for Lead Abdomen on Folkways
• Leadbelly and Lomax Together at the American Music Festival on WNYC
• Lead Abdomen And The Lomaxes: Myths and Realities A FAQ and Timeline Lead Belly's relationship with John and Alan Lomax
• Louisiana Music Hall of Fame Induction Folio
• Lead Belly: Entries|KnowLA, Encyclopedia of Louisiana
• Huddie William "Pb Belly" Ledbetter at Find A Grave

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Belly

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