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Thanks for the interest in the videos.
I'm sure my dad will be thrilled to hear he may have a fan or two out there somewhere.
Nice hearing from you folks.
We had a blast.
See ya next year,
Jason
Jug And Ace: Poor Rich Man Working Blues (2008)
Jug and Ace: The Dirty Dozens (2007)
By Andrew Mullins
“Songs just like being around some folks more than others.” So writes Tom Waits in the introduction to "Lead Belly: A Life in Pictures." Songs must have adored being around Huddie Ledbetter, who performed and recorded hundreds of them as Lead Belly, some among the best known melodies in American music: “Goodnight, Irene,” “Midnight Special,” “Rock Island Line.”
During the 1930s and 40s, the blues singer and his booming twelve-string Stella guitar churned out blues and barrelhouse songs, folk ballads and children’s ditties, work songs and field hollers, square-dance music and cowboy songs, spirituals and protest songs. The breadth of material is probably unequaled in American roots music, and Lead Belly’s odyssey from the cotton fields of Louisiana to incarceration for murder to the stages of New York with father-and-son folklorists John and Alan Lomax is the stuff of irresistible legend.
Is that legend a little faded today? Like his friend Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly has influenced countless musicians over the years: Pete Seeger, Lonnie Donegan, Van Morrison, Kurt Cobain, the White Stripes. “No Lead Belly, no Beatles,” said George Harrison. Even Sinatra recorded “Goodnight, Irene.” But while Lead Belly may have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, such recognition is no guarantee that much more than his colorful nickname–acquired during a term in Sugarland Prison in Texas –is known beyond nostalgic folk and blues circles these days.
[Lead Belly playing "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"
Alvin Singh II, Lead Belly’s great-nephew, had no definitive answer for the question during a visit this past summer to the Port Townsend Country Blues Festival. But the 29-year-old Seattle resident is working hard, through the Lead Belly Foundation and Lead Belly Archives, to make sure his great uncle’s historical importance isn’t forgotten, and the music continues to exert its influence and magic.
“It’s interesting in the YouTube era,” says Singh, “to see videos of people singing ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’, and saying they got this from Nirvana, and then people leaving comments: ‘That’s not Nirvana–do your research, that’s Lead Belly.’ And then somebody saying, ‘That’s not Lead Belly, that’s originally an Appalachian song.’ That kind of trickling down and discussion is what I’d like to spark.”
