Huddie William "Leadbelly" Ledbetter - Born January 15, 1888,
on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana. Young Ledbetter
was a strong child, who could pick prodigious quantities of cotton, an
ability that would assume legendary status while he was incarcerated as
an adult. He took up the guitar in 1903, which together with his singing
and dancing soon had him playing parties in Mooringsport. The next year
Ledbetter, known as a "musicianer" for his instrumental prowess,
began to prowl St. Paul's Bottom, a notorious red light district in Shreveport,
Louisiana.
Ledbetter was exposed to a variety of music on Fannin Street, a row of
saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms. Between 1906 and 1908
he drifted through Louisiana, hearing Jelly Roll Morton at a Rampart Street
dive in New Orleans, before arriving in Dallas, Texas. In 1908, Huddie
suffered a serious illness and returned to his parents' home in Louisiana.
Two years later he was back in Dallas and had acquired a twelve-string
guitar. In 1912, Ledbetter adopted the working name Leadbelly and took
up with Blind Lemon Jefferson, a blind singer/guitarist who would become
the most commercially successful bluesman of his time. The partnership
lasted perhaps five years, exposing Leadbelly to a variety of blues that
he would incorporate into his work. His twelve-string cut through the
crowd noise at dances and provided the perfect counterpart to his high,
clear vocals.
Leadbelly began to have serious troubles with the law beginning in 1915,
and by the following year he was an escaped criminal living under the
alias of Walter Boyd. Leadbelly shot and killed Will Stafford in December
1917, while on the run from the law. He was quickly arrested, convicted,
and sentenced to Shaw State Prison in Huntsville, Texas. Leadbelly spent
the majority of the next seven years in the Texas penal system, becoming
a legend for his labor ability and his singing. While in prison, he sang
a ballad for Governor Pat Neff in January 1924, begging for a pardon that
was granted a year later in one of Neff's last official acts. Soon after
his release, Leadbelly first heard blues records by Bessie Smith, his
friend Blind Lemon, and Big Bill Broonzy. He soon incorporated these songs
into his repertoire, recasting them as his own. Leadbelly lived in Shreveport
and Houston from 1925 to 1930 but, unlike Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Memphis
Jug Band, and Jim Jackson, who all had hit records during this period,
he did not make commercial recordings.
Leadbelly was arrested for attempted homicide in 1930 and was sent to
the notorious Angola Prison, the state penitentiary of Louisiana. Huddie
played his guitar on Sundays and in his spare time while imprisoned, gaining
popularity with prisoners, guards, and Warden L. A. Jones. When folklorist
John Lomax arrived at Angola with his son Alan in July 1933 to record
"Negro work songs" for the Library of Congress, Warden Jones
recommended Leadbelly. The Lomaxes were so impressed with Leadbelly's
ability that they returned a year later to record him again, several months
before his release for "good time." After his release, Leadbelly
accompanied the Lomaxes to other prisons around the South, helping with
the recording equipment and demonstrating to the prisoners with impromptu
concerts the type of songs they were interested in recording. The prisons
included state work farms in Pine Bluff, Tucker, and Gould, Arkansas,
where Leadbelly first heard "Rock Island Line."
Leadbelly became a sensation singing for linguistic societies, clubs,
and colleges. He made his first commercial recordings for the ARC label
in January 1935 and recorded the majority of his work in New York City
over the next fourteen years. Leadbelly became a symbol of the burgeoning
"folk movement" during the late 1930s and 1940s, recording and
entertaining until his death. Leadbelly died on December 6, 1949 in Bellevue
Hospital located in New York City of a bone infection and is buried in
the Shiloh Baptist Church graveyard near Mooringsport. A few months following
his death, "Goodnight Irene" became a hit across the
nation. The music he wrote, especially "Midnight Special"
and "Goodnight Irene", remain as legacies to the man's
talent.
Information regarding the Leadbelly Blues Festival can be found at the following link: http://www.leadbellybluesfestival.com