00:00Lead Belly is a legendary figure in both the fields of folk music and the blues.
00:10Lead Belly's life is the stuff of American popular legend.
00:15He was a hard man who was convicted of murder and spent much of his early adult life in prison.
00:23While in prison he worked in chain gangs doing hard labor.
00:30Lead Belly is remembered for his 12-string guitar virtuosity and his catalog of songs,
00:38both blues and folk, that he either wrote or collected on his travels in the early days of the 20th century.
00:48Among Lead Belly's most famous songs are the following.
00:52Good Night Irene, Black Betty, The Midnight Special, On a Monday, Pick a Bale of Cotton, Green Corn, and Stewball.
01:06Lead Belly was born Hootie Leadbetter in Mooringsport, Louisiana.
01:13By the time he was five years old, his family had settled in Bowie County, Texas.
01:20Lead Belly learned the guitar in childhood and by 1903 he was performing in Shreveport, Louisiana clubs and steadily honing his craft.
01:33The wide range of music which Lead Belly heard in Shreveport had an indelible influence on his music.
01:43In 1912, following the sinking of the Titanic, Lead Belly wrote a song about the ship noting that African-American boxer Jack Johnson
01:55was denied the right to sail on the ship and was able to live out his life as a result.
02:04In 1915, Lead Belly landed in trouble when he was convicted of carrying a pistol.
02:12Three years later, his volatile temper exploded and he killed one of his relatives, Will Stafford, in a fist fight over a woman.
02:24He was sentenced to imprisonment in the Sugar Land Prison near Houston, where he served seven years.
02:32A song written for the Texas governor and his performances for fellow musicians helped to earn him an early release.
02:42He was released in 1925 but would wind up back in prison at Angola Prison Farm in 1930 for attempted murder after he had knifed a white man in a fight.
02:58Between his stints in prison, Lead Belly traveled around Texas with blues master Blind Lemon Jefferson, playing music and acting as Jefferson's guide.
03:12In 1933, John Lomax of the Library of Congress discovered Lead Belly in Angola and recorded him on primitive recording equipment.
03:25Lomax would return the following year with better recording equipment and record hundreds of songs from Lead Belly's vast repertoire of blues and folk tunes.
03:39Later that year, Lead Belly was released for good behavior and accompanied Lomax on several song-collecting excursions through the American South.
03:52In 1934, Lead Belly landed a recording deal with ARC Records and recorded blues material.
04:01His recordings were commercially unsuccessful and he returned to Louisiana.
04:07In 1936, Lead Belly traveled to New York where he tried to appeal to black audiences in Harlem's Apollo Theater by playing the blues.
04:18He failed to win over the Apollo audiences but began to attract attention from the white leftist folk crowd.
04:29In 1939, Lead Belly landed in trouble again, this time for stabbing a man in a fight in Manhattan, a crime which landed him in jail again for two years.
04:44Upon his release in 1941, Lead Belly became a fixture on the New York City folk club scene, appearing with other folk luminaries such as Josh White, Brownie McGee, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.
05:02In 1944, Lead Belly went to California where he made a series of excellent recordings for Capitol Records.
05:09Lead Belly contracted Lou Gehrig's disease in 1949 and died later that year in New York City.
05:18Lead Belly's music is best heard on the compilations, Last Sessions from 1953, Sings Folk Songs from 1962, Lead Belly from 1965, and I'm Sorry.
05:39Midnight Special from 1991, King of the 12-String Guitar from 1991, and Where Did You Sleep Last Night? Lead Belly Legacy Vol. 1 from 1996, and the definitive Lead Belly from 2008.
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