The Library of Congress Recordings. Ce Bed Alan LomaxIntroduction Late in 1934 Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter emerged from the oppressive western Louisiana flatlands, where he had been almost literally unearthed by John and Alan Lomax, into another world, Courted by liberal whites for whom he symbolized the racist South, Lead Belly soon settled in New York City. And he all but ceased playing for fellow African Americans. Instead, he spent most of his creative energies performing at colleges, hootenannies, clubs as well as for Communist functions, events to raise money to support union-organizing, or other related causes. By the time of his death in 1949, brief stints in Hollywood and Paris had brought Ledbetter new recording opportunities and an international following. If Huddle Ledbetter had not been born, his colorful life could have the product of a creative and imaginative writer. Rounder's reissues of Huddie Ledbetter's Library of Congress Recordings place these vivid examples of his artistry back into print. Many of the selections were first issued by Elektra (301/302) as part of a project masterminded by Larry Cohn, However, this boxed set has been unavailable for many years. These recordings from between 1934 and 1942 contain some of Lead Belly’s most powerful work and sample his wide repertoire. Most of Lead Belly’s biggest fans and supporters, such as Alan Lomax and Larry Cohn, consider the Library of Congress recordings to be his strongest work. Moreover, these three volumes contain the earfiest These performances of “Irene,” “Frankie and Albert,” “Ella Speed,” “Roberta, Blues” and “Alberta” remain definitive. They are also some of the finest and most inventive examples of folk music. We are fortunate that John and Alan Lomax stressed not only the breadth of Lead Belly’s repertoire, but also his various styles. These guitar-accompanied selections include stunning examples of Huddie's slide work, while others focus on his titanic voice. The 1940 session contains a large number of sacred pieces and narratives about religion. Lead Belly’s stock of children's songs remain the only aspect of Lead Belly’s repertoire that is not well-represented. Aside from this short-coming, the Library of Congress recordings represents a grand sampling of one of the strongest musical personalities in twentieth-century “American vernacular music.Lead Belly's Life Despite the fame he gained in later life, the details of Lead Belly’s early years remain enigmatic, His peripatetic life as an itinerant musician makes it difficult to learn much about his past. Even in the closing years in New York City, Huddie did not speak of the days before meeting the Lomaxes. As well as Pete Seeger knew Lead Belly, he cannot recall Huddie ever talking about Texas, Louisiana, or his various brushes with the law. Lead Bell's in-concert patter and song preambles often referred to his days in Shreveport, older relatives, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, Concrete information, however, is more difficult to obtain. The fact remains that Huddie Ledbetter was bom just south of Mooringsport, Louisiana, in January of 1888. His sharecropper father, Wes, struggled with the land along the Texas/l ouisiana border. These heady but tough times in late Reconstruction challenged the heartiest of men, but Wes Ledbetter persevered. He transcended the bitter cycle of impoverishing sharecropping to become a landowner, supporting his wife Sallie, young Huddie, and their adopted daughter Australia, with a small degree of comfort. This marginal security permitted Huddie to attend school, a luxury denied to most of his friends. Wes's extended family exposed Huddie to music at an early age. Huddie also followed local guitar players Bud Coleman and jim Fagin, from whom he learned pieces such as “Po’ Howard” and “Green Com.” That Lead Belly does not recall hearing blues in the middle-to-late 1890s is not surprising for this genre was just evolving from the field hollers, ring shouts, Native American ballads, dance tunes, and vocal quartets that dominated African American vernacular music in the late nineteenth century. By the tum of the century Huddie became a regular at the breakdowns (country parties) and sukey-jumps (Square dances) around Mooringsport. His reputation as a musician kept him in demand and most Saturday nights were spent entertaining revelers. The opportunity to gamble, drink, and dance lured scores of people to these important social events, Violence often occurred, Huddie's first brush with the law came at a sukey-jump when he shot at a man who bothered his girlfriend, Eula Lee, resulting in a twenty-five dollar fine for carrying a concealed weapon. Huddie Ledbetter soon graduated to Fannin Street, Shreveport's notorious open red-light district where the “good life” lasted twenty-four hours every day. As early as 1901 Lead Belly’s music took him on the road and away from Mooringsport. The details from this period of his life are particularly lacking, Just shy of twenty years old Huddie married his first wife, Lethe, and by, 1910 they had settled into a more domesticated state. They worked the land in order to bring in a regular cotton crop, but the stability of marriage and living in New Boston, Texas, did not last long, Huddie's appetite for women, breakdowns, and music proved too irresistible. Soon he was back in trouble) first withjan assault charge pressed by a woman near Marshall, Texas. Eventually, he and Lethe had completely separated Around 1915 he met Blind Lemon Jefferson, who later gained fame as a Paramount recording artist andemerged as one of the most respected Texas blues songsters. The two rambled together for months, playing music and living like archetypal “rounders”. But before long Huddie was back in trouble on a series of petty charges. He escaped from jail, laped back to Mooringsport, and was hidden by his father. Lead Belly became known as “Walter Boyd,” the alias under which he was arrested in December 1917, for shooting Will Stafford, This assault finally resulted in a thirty-year sentence at Shaw State Prison Farm, where Huddie remained until 1925. Here Lead Belly learned to cope with and even exploit the system through his musical talents. The guards enjoyed his guitar playing, which eamed him special attention and dispensation. The most precious gift brought by his music (a pardon issued by Texas governor, Pat Neff) came after Lead Belly sang for Neff, who visited the prison in the spring of 1924. Lead Belly eventually returned to Mooringsport and soon landed a job driving a truck for the Gulf Refining Company. He also returned to his old life-style: playing music, attending breakdowns, drinking, gambling, and womanizing, Prohibition created an even greater demand for bootleg liquor and urban centers such as Shreveport attracted an increasing number of rural blacks in search of better job opportunities. Lead Belly enjoyed a large measure of local respect as a musician of great ability, whose guitar playing and singing got him out of the penitentiary. He remained somewhat envious of his buddy Blind Lemon, who emerged as ‘one of the “race record” stars of the late 1920s. Lead Belly eventually turned back to the marginal living afforded to him through his music. He left the safe life behind and again became entangled in the violence that characterized his musical world, He barely avoided jail on several occasions in the late 1920s, even shooting a fellow rounder and evading prosecution. Finally in 1930 even Lead Belly's immense skill at evading the law came up short; he was convicted of assault with intent to murder. For the foreseeable future the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola became his home. Lead Belly, in fact, remained incarcerated in Angola for several years. In the hot summer of July 1933, Alan and John Lomax visited the Penitentiary in search of inmates who knew folksongs: blues, ballads, religious material, and worksongs. Lead Belly's prowess with the |2-string guitar had become well known to everyone within the prison community and he was soon brought to the Lomax’s attention, The power and extent of Lead Belly's talents became immediately apparent to John and Alan Lomax whose |933 trip through the Deep South was to yield scores of fine recordings, But, none of their work brought them more attention than their discovery of the self-described “King of the Twelve- Swing Guitar.” With the Lomaxes assistance Lead Belly secured his release from the custody of the State of Louisiana by way of a pardon from Governor O.K. Allen, Lead Belly became a free man and by the fall of 1934 he began working as John Lomax’s chauffeur: In early 1935 Lead Belly’s long-time woman friend, Martha, joined themand they married on January 2st at the home of one of the Lomax family’s friends in Wilton, Connecticut. His wedding day also included a brief recording session for the Library of Congress. Between 1937 and 1942. Huddie, now permanently relocated in New York City, traveled to Washington D.C. several times to record for Alan Lomax and the Folksong Archive of the Library of Congress From the time he left the South in the fall of 1934, Lead Belly lived in a far different world than his Texas and Louisiana homes, For about one year he appeared weekly on New York City’s public radio station (WNYC) and Lead Belly welcomed the gigs that came along, for he and Martha struggled to survive. They were on and off welfare, a tough position for a man with Lead Belly’s pride. Yet the enticement of commercial success always loomed close; in 1939 and 1940 he took the opportunity to record for Musicraft and Victor, Unfortunately these recordings proved to be poor sellers. Moe Asch provided Huddie with other opportunities beginning in 1941, Many of these records remain in print as part of the Smithsonian/Folkways catalogue and constitute his second greatest recorded legacy. But by 1948 Huddie was back in New York City, ving with Martha and trying to scuffle by with his musical talents. In the spring of 1949 Lead Belly began to tire more quickly; his still spry athletic frame required more rest. Within several months the doctors issued a fatal diagnosis: lateral sclerosis, aka. Lou Gerhig's disease. This degenerative disease of the muscular system sent Huddie into decline and on December 6, 1949 he died In retrospect Lead Belly’s repertoire and twelve-string guitar playing have influenced a multitude of musicians. Gordon Parks directed a major motion picture based on his first forty-six years that Paramount released in 1976. The Smithsonian/Folkways catalogue contains scores of Hucddie’s songs, most notably the “Final Sessions" set produced by Frederic Ramsey. Furthermore, the Smithsonian Institution celebrated the artistry of Woody Guthrie and Huddie Ledbetter as part of their much-acclaimed 1988 “Vision Shared” television documentary and Columbia recording. Lead Belly may be long dead but his legacy remains a powerful force. —Kip Lomnell Office of Folklife Programs Smithsonian InstitutionThe Songs—Volume One This volume concentrates on his earliest Library of Congress performances, the first of which were recorded while Lead Belly was stil incarcerated in Angola Penitentiary. Most of these songs are blues or ballads. Their sources run from the traditional song about cocaine abuse “Take A Whiff on Me" to Huddie's very personal plea for a pardon from "Governor OK. Allen.” Although each song bears Lead Belly’s unmistakable stamp, the sources for some of them remain ambiguous. Despite the assured references to Lead Belly's authorship of “Goodnight Irene,” its origins actually remain quite muddy. As early as 1963 Lead Belly enthusiast John Reynolds pointed out that a prototype of “Irene” appeared in print in 1888. The group that published the song, Haverly's United American European Minstrels, aso performed in northwestern Louisiana in the late 1880s, The “Midnight Special” presents another interesting situation. It was recorded on commercial discs as early as 1925 by Sodarisa Miller and by Sam Collins two years later. Their versions are clearly related to Lead Belly's, though they are not ‘textually or musically identical. In both cases it would appear that Huddie drew from his reservoir of oral tradition and “composed” two songs with which he will forever be linked. Another song, "Matchbox Blues.” is clearly linked with another Texas songster—Blind Lemon jefferson. The two men ran together during the middle teens, but it’s unclear whether Huddie leaned this version directly from his buddy or from a later recording, “Ella Speed” is a second Texas-associated ballad that Lead Belly often performed. Then there is “Frankie and Albert,” which can be traced back to the late nineteenth century. Other black Texas musicians, such as Nick Nichols and Mance Lipscomb, recorded the song, sometimes titled "Frankie and Johnny.” Although it was not recorded commercially until the years following World War Two, “Roberta'’ is another song that seems to be a particular favorite of Texas musicians The rest of the titles heard on this volume are more squarely from the blues tradition. "De Kalb Blues" makes references to a small town in northeastem Texas in which Huddie lived during the early teens. Both “Red River” and "I'm Sorry Mama'" are derived from oral tradition, The set closes with one of the best known of blues ballads, “Careless Love,” which also appeared in the repertoire of early hillbilly singers lke Byrd Moore and Riley Puckett. Also available: Lead Belly: The Library of Congress Recordings, Volume 2 (Rounder 1045) Lead Belly: The Library of Congress Recordings, Volume 3 (Rounder 1046)