THREE SONGS BY



LEADBELLY

A newsreel about the release of a convict? Quite unusual, we all would say. But that's what happened in 1935, when Huddie Ledbetter obtained his second pardon and was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola thanks to musicologists John Lomax and Alan Lomax, father and son who had discovered him there a year earlier while on a field recording expedition for the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress and sent a record of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene" to the state governor, O.K. Allen, and brought him with them to Nw Your City.

ANGOLA, LA! (March 1935)
March of Time Newsreel No. 2, also featuring John Lomax
Goodnight, Irene

Just ten years later, mainly because of Alan Lomax's patronage, Lead Belly had become quite well known as songster and author. Some of his songs have become part of the mainstream American music and have been covered by countless artists and bands.

Here you see him in action.

THREE SONGS BY LEADBELLY (1945)
Intro (Where Did You Sleep Last Night?), Pick a Bale of Cotton,
Long Time Coming, Take This Hammer

To my taste, Lead Belly best works was the series of records he made drom 1937 to 1941 backed by the Golden Gate Quartet.

By 1949 Lead Belly also had a regular radio broadcast for WNYC in New York on Sunday nights on Henrietta Yurchenko's show. Later in the year he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill before its completion. He died that same year.

Although it's pretty rare to see as no home video version was ever released, if you want to spend a little time listening to some good music and want to know more about Lead Belly's story, I'll recommend "Leadbelly", a biopic of his life filmed in 1976 by director Gordon Parks (the intro picture actually is from the movie).

WANNA FIND OUT MORE?

Lead Belly

                          Lead Belli Foundation
                          MySpace
                          Rolling Stone
                          allmusic
                          cultural equity
                          THE HANDBOOK OF TEXAS Online
                          ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME + MUSEUM
                          The louisiana Music Hall of Fame
                          Nashville Songwriters HALL OF FAME
                          HARRY LEWMAN MUSIC
                          DOWN HOME RADIO SHOW
                          SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS
                          THE LEAD BELLY BLUES FESTIVAL
                          INTERNT ARCHIVE
                          IMDb (Lead Belly)
                          IMDb (Leadbelly)
                          allmovie