Bridges history column: Songwriting legend 'Leadbelly' incorporated tragedies into music

Many Texas musicians have become legendary figures for not only their great talents as musicians but also for their colorful lives.  Huddie Ledbetter, known to his fans as “Leadbelly,” was a pioneer blues musician starting in East Texas in the early 1900s, just as rhythm and blues was starting to develop its own musical identity.  His own life was one of many tragedies, which he incorporated into his music.  Ledbetter’s music would far outlast his 1949 death, influencing performers from country to rock for decades afterward.

Huddie William Ledbetter was born in a tiny Louisiana community just northwest of Shreveport.  The family moved often, and within a couple of years moved across the state line into Bowie County.  He showed a great love of music from an early age, but his music training was sporadic.  His first musical gift was an accordion given to him by an uncle.  He soon mastered it and picked up other instruments, such as the harmonica, fiddle, and what became his favorite, the 12-string guitar.  By the time he was 15, Ledbetter was performing at clubs and parties across the area.

Around 1910, Ledbetter was living in Harrison County when he took to the road to pursue a music career, leaving behind his wife and two children.  Though he became increasingly popular with his early blues sound, he often found himself in trouble with the law.  Increasing problems with alcohol only compounded his problems.  Some time in the late 1910s, he picked up the nickname “Leadbelly,” but its origins are uncertain.

It was also in the 1910s that he began singing one of his most popular songs, “Good Night, Irene.”  He went on to write hundreds of songs, some gospel but mostly blues.  “Black Betty,” “Black Snake Moan,” and “Cotton Fields” were among many songs he wrote and performed by the 1920s.  Many of his songs were never recorded or were lost over time.

In 1915, he was jailed in Harrison County on an illegal gun charge but soon escaped.  Three years later, he was imprisoned after another fight turned deadly.  He was sentenced to 35 years.  However, Gov. Pat Neff, who once promised not to pardon any prisoners, pardoned Ledbetter in 1925 after hearing him sing for his release.  Ledbetter resumed his performances, but he still had legal problems.  He was convicted in 1930 in Louisiana following a knife fight and another conviction in New York in 1939.  His time in prison became an inspiration for many of his songs.

He promoted himself as the “King of the 12-String Guitar,” but he was only able to begin recording his songs in the 1930s.  John Lomax, co-founder of the Texas Folklore Society and a former administrator at the University of Texas, recorded dozens of Ledbetter’s songs through a Works Progress Administration program to record oral histories and folk music across the nation.  On a tour of the Northeast, Ledbetter found an appreciative circle of musicians in the growing folk music community.  He would record several songs with Woody Guthrie.

In the early 1940s, he was a regular radio performer on a nationwide folk music program, hosted by John Lomax’s son, Alan.  By 1949, Ledbetter had his own radio show in New York, Folk Songs of America.  That year, just as his career and life were back on track, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a degenerative neuromuscular disorder.  The condition progressed rapidly, but he was able to perform one last concert, a memorial concert for John Lomax at the University of Texas that summer.

He died quietly in New York City in December 1949 at the age of 61.  His life was one of hard luck and little respect save for fellow musicians and a handful of blues fans who saw brilliance in his performances.

As the years passed, fellow musicians kept his memory alive through his music.  Within a few years, his influences became much more pronounced as rock and roll saw its introduction by the mid-1950s and blues reached a new level of artistry.  In the 1950s, folk musician Pete Seeger wrote a book on playing guitar that praised Ledbetter’s technique.  By the 1960s, a flood of popular musicians began recording Ledbetter’s songs.  “Good Night, Irene” was a favorite of country stars such as Ernest Tubb and Willie Nelson. Tubb’s version topped the charts in 1950. Creedence Clearwater Revival made Ledbetter’s “Midnight Special” one of their most famous songs when they recorded it in 1969.  It was also covered by Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, and the Grateful Dead. Ledbetter was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

In 1976, a movie was made about his life called simply Leadbelly. In 1988, in the centennial year of his birth, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honored as one of the early major influences.  The popular grunge-rock band Nirvana introduced Ledbetter to a new generation with Kurt Cobain’s rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” in a televised performance in 1994.  Many of his surviving recordings from the 1940s from the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution were released as albums in the 1990s.

Ken Bridges is a writer, historian and native Texan. He holds a doctorate from the University of North Texas. Bridges can be reached by email at drkenbridges@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Bridges: 'Leadbelly' songs live on in rock, blues, posthumous honors