Lead Belly :

[gyro]

Until yesterday, I had always only attributed the name Leadbelly to a band in the early 90's (I think) that did a song called 'Feed The Tree', or something like that.

This is the REAL Lead Belly :



A man who famously played a 12 string guitar, was in prison twice for murder, and who managed to use music to get his way out. Sort of.

[Deleted]

Yes, he was a Louisianan.

[gyro]

Okay, thanks. End of thread.

[bixaorellana]

Gawd ~~ I LOVE Lead Belly! Listening to him is pretty much a musical education, not just for hearing songs that were originally his, but to realize how much folk music was kept alive to the point it's been carried forward into our own time. In fact, "The Midnight Special", a song closely associated with Lead Belly, was one he learned while doing time in the prison in Sugarland, Texas. Amazingly, he got out of prison twice -- in Texas and in Louisiana -- by impressing the governors of those states with his talent. (although the La. story is disputed).
It was while in prison in Angola, Louisiana that he was "discovered" by John & Allen Lomax, musicologists recording for the Library of Congress. There are quite a few film clips of Lead Belly made by the Lomaxes, some of which are hard to watch because of the patronizing air of them.

Here are two well-known favorites:

[mickthecactus]

Bourgeois Blues - a classic.

[bixaorellana]

I'd heard the story about Leadbelly being released from Angola prison (#13) my whole life, although have also read that it was apocryphal.

Just now, I went to look up all of Leadbelly's songs on Grooveshark, and found his song entitled Governor O.K. Allen*. That certainly makes it seem as though the story of his release is true. Scroll down on this page to read a discussion of the lyrics:
www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=15051

There is a nifty feature of Grooveshark, wherein you look up an artist, band, or song. On the results page, click "Play All". It will cycle through the entire collection on that page. You'll get some repeats, which you can choose to skip.

Here is Leadbelly's page: listen.grooveshark.com/#/search/song?q=leadbelly

*This is a nice, bland Wikipedia entry on Governor Allen, who was an important piece of the Long political machine. My uncle used to tell me of names having to be chiseled off of public buildings in Louisiana because those buildings were named after state politicians who were later sent to jail. A building where I went to university escaped this fate, and I believe remains known as the O.K. Allen Dining Hall. Allen was known as a tool of Huey Long, who said about him, "O.K. will sign anything. Once a leaf blew through the window onto the governor's desk, and O.K. signed that."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_K._Allen

[mickthecactus]

Great stuff Bixa.

He was quite a character.