{"id":113002,"date":"2026-01-20T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=113002"},"modified":"2026-01-19T11:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T16:56:22","slug":"happy-birthday-leadbelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=113002","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Leadbelly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped.jpg\" alt=\"leadbelly2bygottliebcropped\" width=\"412\" height=\"438\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-113003\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped.jpg 412w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped-94x100.jpg 94w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped-188x200.jpg 188w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/leadbelly2bygottliebcropped-376x400.jpg 376w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 412px) 100vw, 412px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n<strong>From Tennessee Williams&#8217; play <i>Orpheus Descending<\/i>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>LADY: What&#8217;s all that writing on it?<\/p>\n<p>VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there. <\/p>\n<p>LADY: Can I see it?<\/p>\n<p>VAL: Turn on that light above you. [<em>She switches on green-shaded bulb over counter. VAL holds the guitar tenderly between them as if it were a child; his voice is soft, intimate, tender.<\/em>] See this name? Leadbelly?<\/p>\n<p>LADY: Leadbelly? <\/p>\n<p>VAL: Greatest man ever lived on the twelve-string guitar! Played it so good he broke the stone heart of a Texas governor with it and won himself a pardon out of jail &#8230; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xn50JSI0W-E\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nHuddie William Ledbetter was born on this day in 1888, in Louisiana. Some of the details are lost to history, but what is known is that he was already &#8220;playing out&#8221; at the turn of the 20th century, in and around Shreveport. He was in and out of jail starting in the teens, for owning a gun, for killing a relative. One time, he escaped from a chain gang. While in prison, he continued to sing and make music. John and Alan Lomax (whose names come up again and again in the stories of legendary blues figures in the early years of the 20th century) discovered him in prison in the 1930s. The Lomaxes were determined to capture the sound of these so-called forgotten figures, and they put Leadbelly on tape. They may have been instrumental in getting Leadbelly an early release. Alan Lomax interviewed Leadbelly extensively for his 1936 book <i>Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly <\/i>. (You&#8217;ll see his nickname spelled both ways.) As technology developed, these 19th-century blues singers &#8211; if they were still around &#8211; found a whole new world opening up to them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Folk music was on the rise. Much of it was watered-down but a lot wasn&#8217;t. The past moved into the present. These inspirations along with them, playing folk festivals, making television appearances. (See: Furry Lewis, but there are so many more.) Ledbetter, born on a plantation in 1888, ended up touring Europe. He traveled a long long way. <\/p>\n<p>More after the jump: <\/p>\n<p>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g8z_p4Wk_Hk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VQva5wKSfzM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PsfcUZBMSSg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nAnd then  Nirvana introduced to a whole new generation (i.e. mine) to Leadbelly during their MTV Unplugged concert:<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hEMm7gxBYSc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;Here&#8217;s to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too&#8230;&#8221;  &#8211; Dylan<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GqL2TvMHMHM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E-XiXI6ezpY\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iQ6gtj4p1yI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nA riveting clip of Leadbelly performing &#8220;Hammer,&#8221; which he wrote after being released from Angola State Prison. <\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/280ZECc773g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><p>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<small><em>Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here&#8217;s a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.venmo.com\/u\/Sheila-OMalley-3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">my Venmo account<\/a>. And I&#8217;ve launched a Substack, <a href=\"https:\/\/sheilaomalley.substack.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you&#8217;d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Tennessee Williams&#8217; play Orpheus Descending: LADY: What&#8217;s all that writing on it? VAL: Autographs of musicians I run into here and there. LADY: Can I see it? VAL: Turn on that light above you. [She switches on green-shaded bulb &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=113002\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,39],"tags":[2534,1571,190],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113002"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196757,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113002\/revisions\/196757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}