HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEAD BELLY! Born Huddie William Ledbetter on January 20th 1888 on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana. Best known as Lead Belly, he was an American folk and blues musician notable for his strong vocals and virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar. He could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and Cajun accordion (windjammer). Also known for the songbook of folk standards he introduced. The topics of Lead Bellys music covered a wide range, including gospel; blues about women, liquor, prison life, and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, and Howard Hughes. By 1903 he was performing for nearby Shreveport audiences in St. Pauls Bottoms, a notorious red-light district there. He began to develop his own style of music on Shreveports Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls now referred to as Ledbetter Heights. Influenced by the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912, Huddie wrote the song The Titanic, the first composed on the 12-string guitar later to become his signature instrument. The song is about champion African-American boxer Jack Johnsons being denied passage on the Titanic. Jack Johnson tried to get on board. The Captain, he says, I aint haulin no coal! Fare thee, Titanic! Fare thee well! Ledbetters volatile temper sometimes led him into trouble with the law. In 1915, he was convicted of carrying a pistol and sentenced to time on the Harrison County chain gang. He escaped, finding work in nearby Bowie County under the assumed name of Walter Boyd. In January 1918 he was imprisoned at the Imperial Farm in Sugar Land, Texas, after killing one of his own relatives in a fight over a woman. While there he may have first heard the traditional prison song Midnight Special. 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 sentence. Combined with his good behavior (which included entertaining the guards and fellow prisoners), his appeal to Neffs strong religious beliefs proved sufficient. It was a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons. Neff had regularly brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter perform. In 1930 Ledbetter was sentenced to Louisianas Angola Prison Farm, after a summary trial for attempted homicide for stabbing a white man in a fight. He was discovered there three years later during a visit by folklorists John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax. Deeply impressed by Ledbetters vibrant tenor and extensive repertoire, the Lomaxes recorded hundreds of his songs. On August 1, Ledbetter was released after having again served nearly all of his minimum sentence, following a petition the Lomaxes had taken to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen at his urgent request. Some claim his fellow inmates called him Lead Belly as a play on his family name and his physical toughness. It is recounted that during his second prison term, another inmate stabbed him in the neck (leaving him with a fearsome scar he subsequently covered with a bandana); Ledbetter nearly killed his attacker with his own knife. Others say he earned the name after being wounded in the stomach with buckshot. Another theory is that the name refers to his ability to drink moonshine, the home-made liquor which Southern farmers, black and white, made to supplement their incomes. Whatever its origin, he adopted the nickname as a pseudonym while performing. By the time Lead Belly was released from prison the United States was deep in the Great Depression and jobs were very scarce. In September 1934 Lead Belly ask John A. Lomax to take him on as a driver. For three months he assisted in his folk song collecting abroad the South. On New Years Day, 1935, the pair arrived in New York City. The newspapers were eager to write about the singing convict and Time magazine made one of its first filmed March of Time newsreels about him. Lead Belly attained fame (although not fortune). He began recording for the American Record Corporation. Of the over 40 sides he recorded for ARC, they only issued five blues sides rather than the folk songs for which he would later become better known. In January 1936, Lead Belly was performing twice a day at Harlems Apollo Theater during the Easter season in a live dramatic recreation of the Time Life newsreel about his prison encounter with John A. Lomax, where he had worn stripes, though by this time he was no longer associated with Lomax. Life magazine ran a three-page article titled, Lead Belly - Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel, in its April 19, 1937 issue. It included a full-page, color (rare in those days) picture of him sitting on grain sacks playing his guitar and singing and showing Lead Bellys hands playing the guitar (with the caption these hands once killed a man). The article attributes both of his pardons to his singing of his petitions to the governors, who were so moved that they pardoned him. Lead Belly failed to stir the enthusiasm of Harlem audiences. Instead, he attained success playing at concerts and benefits for an audience of leftist folk music aficionados. He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture, taking the hint from his previous participation in John A. Lomaxs college lectures. He was especially successful with his repertoire of childrens game songs. In 1939, Lead Belly was back in jail for assault, after stabbing a man in a fight in Manhattan. Alan Lomax, then 24, took him under his wing and helped raise money for his legal expenses, dropping out of graduate school to do so. After his release (in 1940-41), Lead Belly appeared as a regular on Alan Lomax and Nicholas Rays groundbreaking CBS radio show, Back Where I Come From, broadcast nationwide. He also was becoming a fixture in New York Citys surging folk music scene and befriending the likes of Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie, and a young Pete Seeger, all fellow performers on Back Where I Come From. During the first half of the decade he recorded for RCA, the Library of Congress, and for Moe Asch (future founder of Folkways Records), and in 1944 headed to California, where he recorded strong sessions for Capitol Records. Lead Belly was the first American country blues musician to see success in Europe. In 1949, Lead Belly had a regular radio broadcast on station WNYC in New York on Sunday nights on Henrietta Yurchencos show. Later in the year he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrigs disease. His final concert was at the University of Texas at Austin in a tribute to his former mentor, John A. Lomax, who had died the previous year. Lead Belly was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in its 3rd ceremony, in 1988 in the Early Influence category. In 2008, he was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. Lead Belly died on December 6th 1949 in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery in Mooringsport, Louisiana, 8 miles (13 km) west of Blanchard, in Caddo Parish. He is honored with a statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport. Heres Leadbellys recording of a song that would later appear on Led Zeppelin III, Gallows Pole..... Enjoy!
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:05:23 +0000
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