Lead belly children
- •
Lead Belly
(1888-1949)
Who Was Lead Belly?
Famed musician Lead Belly was born in Louisiana in the late 1880s. Lead Belly was imprisoned in Texas for murder in 1918. According to tradition, he won his early release in 1925 by singing a song for the governor of Texas. Lead Belly was imprisoned again, for attempted murder, in 1930. There, he was "discovered" by folklorists John Lomax and Alan Lomax, who were collecting songs for the Library of Congress. Subsequently, he published 48 songs.
Early Years
Huddie Ledbetter, better known as "Lead Belly," was born in the late 1880s (the date is uncertain) in a country setting in northwest Louisiana. He attended school in Texas until around age 13, playing in a school band, and then worked the land with his father.
He began learning how to play musical instruments as a youth and eventually focused on the guitar, performing as a teenager at local dances. At age 16, he headed out across the Deep South, settling in Shreveport, Louisiana, for two years, where he supported himself as a musician. Around 1912, now liv
- •
Lead Belly
American folk and blues musician (1888–1949)
"Leadbelly" redirects here. For the biographical film on this person, see Leadbelly (film).
Musical artist
Huddie William Ledbetter (HYOO-dee; January 1888[1][2] or 1889[3] – December 6, 1949),[1] better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines" (also known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"), "Pick a Bale of Cotton", "Goodnight, Irene", "Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil".
Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and windjammer.[4] In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.
Lead Belly's songs covered a wide range of genres, including gospel music, blues, and folk music, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys,
- •
Born January 15, 1888, on the Jeter Plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana, Ledbetter became interested in music when he was five years old. His uncle Terrell gave him his first instrument, an accordion. 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
Copyright ©bernate.pages.dev 2025