LEDBETTER, HUDDIE

Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, was an icon of 20th century American folk music. He is best remembered as the King of the 12-String Guitar and his song repertoire including “Goodnight, Irene”, “Rock Island Line”, “Midnight Special” and “Cotton Fields.” He was a major influence on Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger who in turn influenced the folk revival and early development of rock and roll. He was inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1988) and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame (1970) and was honored with the Folk Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award (1998). The 125th anniversary of his birth was celebrated in 2015 with a Kennedy Center concert followed by concerts in London and New York.

Born on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana, he showed an early interest in music, learning the button accordion and playing for his parents’ church. He picked up his first guitar in 1903 and in 1912 met street musician Blind Lemon Jefferson with whom he used to play in the Dallas area. In 1915 he was convicted of weapons charges and sentenced to 30 days on a chain gang. He escaped and moved to Bowie County, TX where he lived under the name Walter Boyd and returned to performing while also working as a sharecropper. He served another prison sentence at Shaw Prison Farm, transferring to Sugarland where he was pardoned in 1925 after the minimum 7 years on an appeal to Governor Pat Neff for whom he performed and wrote a song.

Lead Belly returned to Louisiana and became a musician on the local music scene. In January 1930 he was involved in a stabbing incident that led to a charge of “assault with intent to murder a white man.” He was convicted, sentenced to 6 to 10 years and sent to Angola Prison Farm. Three years later folklorist John Lomax and his 18 year old son Alan Lomax met Lead Belly while recording American folk songs on portable aluminum discs for the Library of Congress. They returned in 1934 and recorded Lead Belly a second time. After his 1935 pardon he worked with the Lomaxes collecting folk songs in Southern prisons. In 1936 John Lomax and Lead Belly went their separate ways, Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly was published, and Lead Belly moved to New York City with his wife Martha Promise, quickly building a career as a performer.

In 1940 he launched his own weekly 15-minute radio show on station WNYC, Folksongs of America produced by Henrietta Yurchenko. He also recorded a set of commercial recordings for RCA and returned to recording for the Library of Congress.

In May 1949 he toured in France but while there was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. His final concert in June was at the University of Texas. He died in December in New York and was buried in Mooringsport, Louisiana . He is honored with a life-size statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport.