Lead Belly

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Lead Belly

Background information
Birth name Huddie William Ledbetter
Also known as Lead Belly
Born January 1888(1888-01-)
Mooringsport, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Died December 6, 1949 (aged 61)
New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Genre(s) blues, folk, country blues, folk revival
Occupation(s) Musician, songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar, accordion
Years active 1936 - 1949
Website www.leadbelly.org
Notable instrument(s)
Stella 12-string guitar
For the biographical film on this person, see Leadbelly (film).

Huddie William Ledbetter, (January, 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an American folk and blues musician, notable for his clear and forceful singing, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced.

He is best known as Leadbelly or Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly," he himself spelled it "Lead Belly." This is also the usage on his tombstone, [1][2] as well as the Lead Belly Foundation.

Although he most commonly played the twelve string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, concertina, and accordion. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk ballad "John Hardy", he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar. In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs; blues songs about women, liquor and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding and dancing. He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as President Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, the Scottsboro Boys and multi-millionaire Howard Hughes.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Lead Belly playing his twelve string guitar.
Lead Belly playing his twelve string guitar.

Lead Belly's date of birth is uncertain. He was probably born in January 1888, although his gravestone gives his year of birth as 1889. The earliest year given for his birth has been 1885, although other sources stated either 1888 or 1889. According to the 1900 census, Hudy (the spelling given in the census) is one of two listed children (the other is his stepsister, Australia Carr), of Wes and Sallie (Brown) Ledbetter of Justice Precinct 2, Harrison County, Texas. Wesley and Sallie were legally wed on February 26, 1888, shortly after Lead Belly's likely date of birth, even though they had lived together as husband and wife for years. The 1900 census, differing from the usual census in that it lists the month and year of birth, rather than just the age, states the birth year of 'Hudy' Ledbetter to be 1888 and the month listed as January; Huddie's age is listed as twelve. The census of 1910 and the census of 1930 confirm 1888 as the year of birth.

The day of his birth has also been debated. The most common date given is January 20, but other sources suggest he was born on January 21 or 29. The only document we have that Ledbetter, himself, helped fill out is his World War II draft registration from 1942 where he gives his birth date as January 23, 1889.[citation needed]

Lead Belly was born to Wesley and Sallie Ledbetter as Huddie William Ledbetter in a plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana, but the family moved to Leigh, Texas, when he was five. By 1903, Lead Belly was already a 'musicianer', a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed for nearby Shreveport, Louisiana audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, a notorious red-light district in the city. Lead Belly began to develop his own style of music after exposure to a variety of musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms.

At the time of the 1910 census, Lead Belly, still officially listed as 'Hudy', was living next door to his parents with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson, who at the time of the census was seventeen years old, and was, therefore, fifteen at the time of their marriage in 1908. It was also there that he received his first instrument, an accordion, from his uncle, and by his early 20s, after fathering at least two children, he left home to find his living as a guitarist (and occasionally, as a laborer). Lead Belly would later claim that as a youth he would "make it" with 8 to 10 women a night.[citation needed]

Influenced by the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912, he would go on to write the song "The Titanic",[1] which noted the racial indifferences of the time. "The Titanic" was the first song he ever learned to play on a 12-string guitar, which was later to become his signature instrument. He first played it in 1912 when performing with Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897-1929) in and around Dallas, Texas. Leadbelly noted that he had to leave out the verse about boxer Jack Johnson when playing before a white audience.

[edit] Prison years

Lead Belly's boastful spirit and penchant for the occasional skirmish sometimes led him into trouble with the law, and in January 1918 he was thrown into prison for the second time, this time after killing one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fight. He was incarcerated in Sugar Land, Texas and it is there that he got the inspiration for the song Midnight Special.[2] It is said that he was released two years into his 35-year sentence after writing a song appealing to Governor Pat Morris Neff for his freedom. Lead Belly had swayed Governor Neff by appealing to his strong religious values. That, in combination with good behavior (including entertaining by playing for the guards and fellow prisoners), was Lead Belly's ticket out of jail.

In 1930, Lead Belly was back in prison, this time in Louisiana for attempted homicide. It was there, three years later, that he was "discovered" by musicologists John and Alan Lomax, who were enchanted by his talent, passion and singularity as a performer, and recorded hundreds of his songs on portable recording equipment for the Library of Congress. The following year Lead Belly was once again pardoned, this time after a petition for his early release was taken to Louisiana Governor O.K. Allen by the Lomaxes. The petition was on the other side of a recording of one of his most popular songs, "Goodnight Irene". The state's prison records, however, show he was released due to good behavior, mentioning nothing of the song.[citation needed]

There are many disputed stories regarding Ledbetter's famous nickname, but he likely first acquired it while he was in prison. One claim says his fellow inmates dubbed him "Lead Belly" as a play on his last name and a testament to his physical toughness. One story tells that when one of the inmates tried to stab him in the neck (which left him with a scar) during his second prison term, he took the knife away and in turn almost killed his attacker with it. Another says he earned the name after being shot in the stomach with shotgun buckshot.[3] Blues singer Big Bill Broonzy claimed that Lead Belly's name came from the claim that he had a tendency to lay about "with a stomach weighted down by lead" in the shade when the chain gang was supposed to be working.[4] Others claim the name comes from his ability to drink the homemade liquor the prisoners would make. He then used the nickname as a pseudonym when he was recording, and the name stuck ever since.

Bob Dylan once remarked, on his XM radio show, that Lead Belly was "One of the few ex-cons who recorded a popular children’s album."[5]

[edit] Life after prison

Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and Martha Promise Ledbetter, Wilton, Conn.
Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and Martha Promise Ledbetter, Wilton, Conn.

Indebted to the Lomaxes, Lead Belly allowed Alan to take him under his wing, and in late 1934 migrated to New York City with him, where he attained fame, though not fortune. In 1935 he married Martha Promise and began recording with the American Record Corporation (ARC), but achieved little commercial success with these records. Part of the reason for the poor record sales may have been because ARC insisted he record blues songs rather than the folk for which he was better known. In any case, Lead Belly continued to struggle financially.

Life magazine ran a 3-page article titled "Lead Belly - Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel" in the April 19, 1937 issue. It includes a full-page, color (rare in those days) picture of him, sitting on grain sacks playing his guitar and singing. Also included are a striking picture of Martha Promise, Lead Belly's hands playing the guitar (with the caption "these hands once killed a man"), Texas Governor Pat M. Neff, and the "ramshackle" Texas State 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 article text ends with "he... may well be on the brink of a new and prosperous period."

In 1939 he was back in jail for assault. Upon his release in 1940, Lead Belly returned to a surging New York folk scene, and befriended the likes of Woody Guthrie and a young Pete Seeger. 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. Leadbetter was the first American country blues musician to see success in Europe.[6] In 1949 he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill before its completion, and was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Lead Belly died later that year in New York City, and was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery in Mooringsport, 8 miles (13 km) west of Blanchard, Louisiana, in Caddo Parish.

[edit] Technique

Lead Belly styled himself "King of the 12-string guitar," and despite his use of other instruments like the concertina, the most enduring image of Lead Belly as a performer is wielding his unusually large Stella twelve-string. This guitar had a slightly longer scale length than a standard guitar, slotted tuners, ladder bracing, and a trapeze-style tailpiece to resist bridge lifting.

Lead Belly played with finger picks much of the time, using a thumb pick to provide a walking bass line and occasionally to strum. This technique, combined with low tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. Lead Belly's tuning is debatable, but appears to be a downtuned variant of standard tuning; more than likely he tuned his guitar strings relative to one another, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Lead Belly's playing style was popularized by Pete Seeger, who adopted the twelve-string guitar in the 1950s and released an instructional LP and book using Ledbetter as an exemplar of technique.

In some of the recordings where Lead Belly accompanied himself, he would make an unusual type of grunt between his verses. He would do this grunt, "Haah!", through many of his songs, such as, Looky Looky Yonder, Take this Hammer, Linin' Track and Julie Ann Johnson. It gave a somewhat catchy sound to the songs. He explains that, "Every time the men say 'haah', the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and we sing",[7] an apparent reference to prisoners' work songs. The grunt represents the tired deep breaths the men would take while working, singing and pausing in cadence with the work.

[edit] Musical legacy

Lead Belly playing an accordion.
Lead Belly playing an accordion.

Lead Belly's vast songbook, much of which he adapted from previous sources, has provided material for numerous folk, country, pop and rock acts since his time. Examples:

[edit] Discography

Further information: List of Lead Belly songs

[edit] The Library of Congress recordings

The Library of Congress recordings, done by John and Alan Lomax from 1934 to 1943, were released in a six volume series by Rounder Records in the early-to-mid-1990s:

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

[edit] Folkways recordings

The Folkways recordings, done for Moe Asch from 1941 to 1947, were released in a three volume series by Smithsonian Folkways in the late 1990s:

  • Where Did You Sleep Last Night - Lead Belly Legacy Vol.1 (1996)
  • Bourgeois Blues - Lead Belly Legacy Vol.2 (1997)
  • Shout On - Lead Belly Legacy Vol.3 (1998)

Smithsonian Folkways have also released a number of other collections of his recordings for the label:

  • Lead Belly Sings Folk Songs (1989)
  • Lead Belly's Last Sessions (4 CD box set) (1994) Recorded late 1948 in New York City. These were his only commercial recordings on magnetic tape.
  • Lead Belly Sings For Children (1999) Includes the 1960 Folkways album Negro Folk Songs for Young People in its entirety, and five of the six tracks from the 1941 album Play Parties in Song and Dance as Sung by Lead Belly, recorded for Moe Asch, as well as other songs recorded for Asch from 1941 to 1948, and one previously unreleased track, a radio broadcast of "Take this Hammer."
  • Folkways: The Original Vision (Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly) (2004) Expanded version of the original 1989 compilation.

[edit] Other compilations

Lead Belly during his last recording session in 1948.
Lead Belly during his last recording session in 1948.

[edit] References and notes

  1. ^ "The Titanic", performed by Lead Belly
  2. ^ Lomax, Alan, (editor). Folk Song USA. New American Library.
  3. ^ The Mudcat Cafe. Leadbelly - King of the 12 String Guitar. Retrieved on January 30, 2007
  4. ^ Terkel, Studs (2005). And They All Sang. New Press. 
  5. ^ Inside Bob Dylan's Brain, Vainty Fair, April 2008
  6. ^ The Mudcat Cafe. Leadbelly - King of the 12 String Guitar. Retrieved on January 30, 2007
  7. ^ Youtube. Lead Belly singing Take this Hammer. Retrieved on January 30, 2008
  8. ^ Wikipedia article, "Kisses Sweeter than Wine (song)"
  9. ^ Rolling Stone interview with Van Morrison

[edit] Sources

White, Gary; Stuart, David; Aviva, Elyn. "Music in Our World". 2001. ISBN 0-07-027212-3. (p. 196)

[edit] External links

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