Huddie Ledbetter, known as Leadbelly, was a unique figure in the American popular music of the 20th century. Ultimately, he was best remembered for a body of songs that he discovered, adapted, or wrote, including "Goodnight, Irene," "Rock Island Line," "The Midnight Special," and "Cotton Fields."
But he was also an early example of a folksinger whose background had brought him into direct contact with the oral tradition by which folk music was handed down, a tradition that, by the early years of the century, already included elements of commercial popular music.
Because he was an African-American, he is sometimes viewed as a blues singer, but blues (a musical form he actually predated) was only one of the styles that informed his music. He was a profound influence on folk performers of the 1940s such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, who in turn influenced the folk revival and the development of rock music from the 1960s onward, which makes his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, early in the hall's existence, wholly appropriate.
Tracklist
01 Fannin Street 02 I've A Pretty Flowers 03 Easy Rider 04 Bull Cow 05 Dekalb Blues 06 New York City 07 Mother's Blues 08 Tell Me Baby 09 Sweet Mary Blues 10 Bourgeois Blues 11 My Friend Blind Lemon 12 Good Morning Blues 13 Gallis Pole 14 Outskirts Of Town 15 Grasshoppers In My Pillow 16 Scottsboro Blues 17 Sail On Little Girl, Sail On 18 Don't You Love You Daddy No More 19 Where Did You Sleep Last Night 20 How Long 21 Looky Looky Yonder
Another classic from Zero G [via Imagenetz so available to us mere mortals in the UK]. As I have said ad nauseam but Leadbelly perhaps the earliest unfluence on this precocious schoolboy of 13 and an ep with Goodnight Urene and Gallows Pole (here ‘Gallis Pole’?!) contender for my first blues purchase from the budget sale bins ay that age! It has haunted me forever!
check out what Leadbelly is using to play slide!!?!!!
They made ‘em harder back then, illegal (still) in the UK, I own a miniature one about 1” long and it actually flicks! It always made me laugh and couldn’t sharpen a pencil but . . . .
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 . . . . .
William Gottlieb Leadbelly, National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 1940
I may have posted this before but it is a favourite singer and bluesman and a favourite song I used to wander the streets of my little village singing this at the top of my lungs (well out of earshot I trusted!) when but a callow youth barely thirteen years old - probably the reason why I bought a 12 string as my first guitar too!
Not the whole song here which is a shame but just look at the state of that six string guitar!!
Remembering HUDDIE WILLIAM LEDBETTER (Jan 20, 1888 – Dec 6, 1949), better known by the stage name LEAD BELLY, 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 was renowned for his powerful voice, dexterity on the 12-string guitar, and the vast repertoire of songs he adapted from traditional sources or wrote himself. Growing up in Louisiana and Texas, he was exposed to a rich mix of blues, work songs, field hollers, children’s songs, ballads and more from the oral folk tradition. After various prison stints where he further expanded his songbook, Lead Belly went on to influence seminal 1950s folk revival artists like Pete Seeger and the Weavers, who had major pop hits covering his songs “Goodnight Irene” and “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.”
Other Lead Belly compositions that have become deeply embedded into the Great American Songbook over the decades include “The Midnight Special,” “Rock Island Line,” “Cotton Fields,” and “In The Pines” (later adapted into “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” by Nirvana). Artists from virtually every musical genre have recorded or performed versions of his songs, and his forward-looking style served as an early blueprint for rock music. Lead Belly’s commitment to preserving and building upon traditional forms deserves much credit in the growth of folk into a globally-beloved genre.
In recent decades, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Grammy Hall of Fame rightfully inducted Lead Belly for his profound influence. When listening today to popular music of any stripe, traces of Lead Belly’s rich legacy invariably reveal themselves. Though his career met an sadly premature end, Huddie Ledbetter paved the way for countless artists who came later and brought the beauty of American folk songcraft to the world stage. On his birthday, we honor Lead Belly’s lasting impact and give thanks for the musical gifts he provided that still resonate today, 75 years after his passing. His combination of talent, determination and fearless creativity continue inspiring new generations of musicians and music fans alike.
NOTE: The footage here features Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter serenading his wife, Martha Promise, (as well as a room of adoring and well-dressed fans) with his signature song “Goodnight Irene.” I've upscaled and colorized this precious footage.
GOODNIGHT IRENE
Written in 3/4 time, Goodnight, Irene was first recorded by American blues musician Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter in 1933 and the lyrics tell of the singer's troubled past with his love, Irene, and express his sadness and frustration.
Several verses refer explicitly to suicidal fantasies, most famously in the line "sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown," which was the inspiration for the 1964 Ken Kesey novel Sometimes a Great Notion and a song of the same name from John Mellencamp's 1989 album, Big Daddy, itself strongly informed by traditional American folk music.
It was the pioneering musicologist and folklorist John Lomax who recorded a version of Huddie Ledbetter's song "Irene" in 1933, on a prison visit to Angola (Louisiana State Penitentiary). These recordings for the Library of Congress included three takes of "Irene".
As part of the Federal Art Project that began in 1935, the song was published in 1936, in Lomax's version, as "Goodnight, Irene", a joint Ledbetter-Lomax composition.
It has a straightforward verse–chorus form, but is in waltz time.
It is a three-chord song, characterised as a "folk ballad" with a three-phrase melody, with provenance in 19th-century popular music transmitted by oral tradition.
"Irene" has been styled by Neil V. Rosenberg a "folk recomposition" of the 1886 song "Irene Good Night" by Gussie L. Davis.
Hank Williams connected the melody to the English ballad tradition, via a mountain song he knew as "Pere Ellen".
Lead Belly's account was of performing "Irene" by 1908, in a way he learned from his uncles Ter(r)ell and Bob. By the 1930s he had made the song his own, modifying the rhythm and rewriting most of the verses. John and Alan Lomax made a field recording of Bob Ledbetter's version of the song.
Lead Belly continued performing the song during his prison terms. An extended version of the song that includes narratives connecting the verses appears in Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly. In 1941 Woody Guthrie used the melody for his New Deal anthem Roll On, Columbia, Roll On.
"Irene" remained a staple of Lead Belly's performances throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 2002, Lead Belly's Library of Congress recording received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
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more from the original clip here but still with fits and starts and unecessary cuts. Filmed for the Library of Congress this is EARLY for sure!
Another fuller live version by the master (sadly with no film)
Ry Cooder - Goodnight Irene (Leadbelly’s heritage)
Ry Cooder and the Chicken Skin Band play 'Goodnight Irene’ live at Shepherd's Bush Television Theatre, London in 1977.
Part of the reason my first purchase of a guitar was a 12 string was this man who affected this precocious little English boy so much he ended up on reaching teenagehood wandering the village where he grew up singing When I was a Cowboy and Goodnight Irene at the top of his lungs which must have caused amusement or bemusement from my neighbours and certainly my early first girlfriends! Strange child!
Although the eclectic North Louisiana musician known as Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter, 1888–1949) is long gone, he still casts a long shadow of influence on popular music. Renditions of songs that he wrote and/or popularised—including “Cottonfields,” “The Midnight Special,” “Goodnight, Irene,” “In The Pines,” and “Boll Weevil”—have scored hits for a variety of artists during the past 65 years, and are still recorded anew today. The stylistic breadth of these songs underscores the fact that while Lead Belly is often designated as a blues musician—implying a limited musical range—he actually personified the far broader “songster” tradition.
A newly released 5-CD/108 song compilation offers an in-depth exploration of his remarkably diverse work, including previously unreleased material. Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (Smithsonian Folkways) does not present his entire recorded oeuvre, but it does illustrate the entire breadth of his life’s work. It also includes some revealing spoken introductions that illuminate Lead Belly’s personality and explain some of the traditions he represented. One example is “Good Morning, Blues”:
“… And now everybody have the blues. Sometimes, they don’t know what it is. But when you lay down at night, turn from one side of the bed all night to the other and you can’t sleep, what’s the matter? Blues has got you. Or when you get up in the mornin’, sit on the side of the bed, may have a mother or father, sister or brother, boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife around. You don’t want no talk out of ’em. They ain’t done you nothin’, you ain’t done them nothin’. What’s the matter, blues got you. Well, you get up and shove your feet down under the table and look down in your place, may have chicken and rice, take my advice, you walk away and shake your head, you say, ‘Lord have mercy. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.’ What’s the matter? Why, the blues got you. They want to talk to you. You got to tell ’em something.”
Three great blues ROIOs of varying ages today out and about . . . so we'll take them in chronological order
I have gone on about my precocious interest in the blues from Leadbelly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy early on and what do you know but there's an album featuring all three (not forgetting Sonny Terry who features large here)
From ZeroSounds two samples today and first this early masterpiece collection of three favourites
A most welcome addition to the Leadbelly trove over at Zerosounds
Great quality and remastered from the Smithsonian original
Tracklist:
Fannin Street 3:01 Bourgeois Blues 2:17 Easy Rider 2:50 Alabama Bound 2:16 Don't You Love Your Daddy No More? 3:01 Gallis Pole 2:44 Leavin' Blues 1:29 Midnight Special 2:01 T.B. Blues 3:42 Linin' Track 1:14 Julie Ann Johnson 0:40 John Henry 2:24 Jim Crow Blues 3:29 Jim Crow #2 2:42 Good Morning Blues #2 2:08 Abraham Lincoln 3:10 Army Life 1:46 Hitler Song 4:32 Careless Love 2:56 Haul Away Joe 2:48 How Do You Know?/Don't Mind The Weather 2:17 Skip To My Lou 2:10 Red Bird 2:54 Out On The Western Plains 1:30 Cowboy Song 1:43 You Can't Mistreat Me 3:13 Diggin' My Potatoes 2:33 John Hardy 2:42
