He's just a name on a lot of lists: the fourth or fifth name on a list of influences, never first, and all too often not mentioned at all where appropriate. He's also an ex-convict, who was a sweet old man only while sober, which wasn't often enough. But by looking at the people he influenced, you can see that Huddie Ledbetter, Leadbelly, was redeemable no matter what he did aside from making music. The self-proclaimed "King of the Twelve-String Guitar" was more aptly the "Godfather of the Twelve-String Gui-tar," being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as an influence. He died poor and pitiful of a form of multiple sclerosis, and six months afterward his first hit song was a million-seller for another group. And every generation thereafter earned a new respect fo

Palmer, Tony, All You Need Is Love: the Story of Popular Music. c1976, Gossman. Pages 183, 196, 207, 296

 Leadbelly, Goodnight Irene. c1996, Tradition. It had the details of "In New Orleans," in its liner notes, and a wailing version of Leroy Carr's blues staple, "How Long Blues."

To make note of his importance, it's important to note his "discoverer," John Lomax. Lomax was on a constant search funded by the government to find its musical roots, rather to preserve what it could of them once the portable recording device was created. At the time Lomax met him, Ledbetter was serving a sen-tence at the Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana for murder, the second long stretch in prison for him. During his first run in prison, for assault in 1925 in Texas, he would play music for the guards to get lighter work-loads and eventually his music granted him an early release from the governor himself. It was in the Texas prison that Ledbetter allegedly earned his nickname, some say because he was able to eat anything, others said it was because he was "the number one man in the number one gang in the Texas pen." Lomax found him doing much the same in the Louisiana prison, singing for lighter work and trying hard for a second pardon from a harder governor. Lomax saw great potential in Ledbetter and helped get him parole in 1933 then hired him as a protege of sorts. As much of a friend John Lomax was, he was also a hindrance, ex-ploiting Leadbelly as a singing prisoner, dressing him in convict or sharecropper clothes for photo sessions. He immortalized Leadbelly and at the same time made a joke of him. For as much as Leadbelly would agree to go along with the clothes, he refused to actually talk about prison or about the ear-to-ear scar on his neck.

 The study guides from this class offered a lot of direction as to which artists to look to, including Lonnie Donnagan and a little bit on "The House of the Rising Sun."

Encyclopedia of Black America. c1981, McGraw-Hill. Page 502

Erliwine, Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Koda, All Music Guide To the Blues. c1996, Miller Freeman Books. Pages 128, 159-161, 301, 305, 307

Among the hundreds of recordings Ledbetter laid down for the Lomax's cause, many were spirituals sang in prisons, a look at a life few would ever get to know. Admittedly, most of the songs were not writ-ten by Ledbetter, but had his own special guitar work behind it - enough to garner w writing credit for him-self and Lomax. Many of these songs go back to the days of slavery, and some are everyday prison worker songs, designed to pass time. Leadbelly had the voice and talent with a guitar to make these songs avail-able even to those that may never know what it's really like to be in a true state of trouble.

While he was alive, he was in an odd position where black people were more involved in newer sounds, and Ledbetter never had much impact on them. As a consequence, Leadbelly was technically con-sidered a bluesman with no influence on the blues, but he changed the face of folk music, which is as unique as it gets in music. But his music reached quite a strange range. Among his two most bizarre cov-ers of his songs was Lonnie Donegan's 1956 cover of "Rock Island Line." It was bizarre because Lonnie Donnegan played skiffle, which is a British version of what the hillbillies of America would play. The other bizarre hit cover of a Leadbelly song about a whip was "Black Betty," as done in 1977 by Ram Jam. These guys were something of a hybrid of bubble gum pop - like the Monkees - and heavy metal - like Led Zeppelin. "Black Betty" was a bit of a radio hit, the closest this band ever came to notoriety.

-This paper could not have been completed without the following:

Some common words found in the essay are:
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