Remembering the great Lead Belly (January 20, 1889 - December 6, 1949)

There is uncertainty over his precise date and year of birth. The Lead Belly Foundation gives his birth date as January 20, 1889, his grave marker gives the year 1889, and his 1942 draft registration card states January 23, 1889.

Having learned to play the six-string guitar, he left home in 1901 to make his way as a minstrel, first on Fannin Street in Shreveport, and later in Dallas and Fort Worth. He spent summers working as a farmhand in the blackland counties east of Dallas and supplemented his income by singing and playing his guitar in saloons and dance halls during the winter. While working in Dallas, he met Blind Lemon Jefferson, and it was as his partner that Ledbetter first began to play the twelve-string guitar.

In 1918, under the name of Walter Boyd, Ledbetter was convicted of murder and sentenced to thirty years in the Texas penitentiary. Either prior to his sentence or during it, the musician received his famous nickname, Lead Belly. Some reports say that he got it for taking a gunshot in the stomach; others suggest that fellow inmates gave it to him for his hard work and fast pace on the chain gangs. In any case, it sounds like his surname. Pardoned in 1925 after having written a song in honor of Governor Pat Neff, Lead Belly again lived from odd jobs until 1930, when he entered the state prison in Angola, Louisiana, on a charge of assault with intent to murder. There his music attracted Texas folklorist John Avery Lomax and his son Alan Lomax. Lead Belly was released from prison for having received credit for “good time” during his incarceration, and for several months he toured with the Lomaxes, giving concerts and assisting them in their efforts to record the work songs and spirituals of Black convicts.

Soon after arriving in New York City with the Lomaxes, Lead Belly came to national prominence through his singing and unconventional background. Despite his growing musical reputation, he continued to have problems controlling his temper and found himself briefly incarcerated for assault in 1939 on Riker's Island. Ironically, his popularity was stronger in the White folk–music scene than the Black blues field. His associates included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Sonny Terry. His original songs such as "Bourgeois Blues" and "Scottsboro Boys" reflected his politics. Lead Belly's most popular composition, "Goodnight Irene," achieved its greatest success when the Weavers recorded it in the early 1950s, after his death.

By: Christine Hamm - Texas State Historical Association

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives

I have said I think what a profound influence on a precocious 13 year old Leadbelly was and the first song I learned by ear was Goodnight Irene and I loved that sound. I found albums and singles in shop hideaway bins and especially around my summer holidays spent ambling around and getting lost in the streets of Fleetwood as a child . . . . .