You caused
me to weep,
You caused
me to mourn,
You caused
me to leave my home.
Good night
Irene,
Goodnight
Irene,
I’ll get you
in my dreams.
“Now, don’t you bother nobody, don’t make trouble, but if
someone try to meddle with you, I want you to protect yourself.”
-Leadbetter Sr on giving his son, Huddie, a pistol for his
16th birthday.
On the surface Leadbelly can be seen to embody a number of
contradictions. He was a singer and multi-instrumentalist as much at home playing
in brothels and gin jukes, as in the trendy New York Greenwich folk scene which
he graced in the 1940s. On the one hand he has the reputation of being a tough
guy who supposedly murdered one man over a woman, and attempted to kill another
several years later. On the other hand he was often described as a quiet,
gentle, and friendly man, who was kind to children to the point where he
adopted orphans with his second wife, and famously arrived late to a recording
session when a group of children and families begged him to perform as he was
walking through a park on his way to the studio. He performed songs in support
of Roosevelt’s election, yet his later association with workers’ unions brought
him to the attention of the FBI. A man who decried racism, as well as the
treatment of the Jews during World War II, yet humbled himself to the Lomaxs
and would do almost anything for a buck. The contradiction continues in images
of the performer. In photographs, he is dressed alternately in farm, and prison,
work uniforms; to the dress of smart suits, bow ties, morning, and dinner,
jackets.
What is lacking in these
juxtapositions is context, not only of Huddie Ledbetter’s life, but also the
world in which he lived in; the world of the American south between 1900 and 1940.
In his youth, Huddie showed a natural
flair for music when singing on his father’s farm, and when playing musical
instruments at school. In rural Louisiana and Texas, where Huddie grew up,
music was a part of everyday life and performed many social functions within
the African American community. At weekly church events gospel singing,
spirituals, and call and response preaching; music announced salvation from
hardship. When working in the fields, and later when Huddie was on the chain
gangs, singing eased the soul, and the beat made the work more efficient and
bearable. At dances music played the backdrop for courtship, and in families it
was used for children’s lullabies and playtime. Music also performed an
individual function in the form of ‘hollers’. In the rural south, where
families could live great distances apart, hollering as one worked or travelled
announced the arrival of someone, the presence of a friendly hand nearby, or
the regularity of a neighbor walking to work or the local town. In a manner
comparable with social media today, it let others know that the person
hollering was okay, and available should those who recognized their voice need
their friend or neighbor.
In this world Huddie distinguished
himself as a singer and multi-instumentalist. At school he was described as a
quiet hard working boy, who availed himself to communal instruments. When he
worked on his father’s farm as a teenager, guitars and banjos afforded an
escape when resting. As his talent grew he received invitations to play local
parties and dances. Within the range of blues street singers, gospel events,
spirituals, string bands, hollers, jigs, dances, parties, and, by the time he
was sixteen, saloons, and brothels, there was ample opportunity for Huddie to
find work and ready audiences. Although of course there was a disparity between
the civilized performances at religious meetings, and the uncivilized world of
brothels and drinking houses. In the latter, violence and debauchery was a part
of everyday life. Knife fights, shootings, and quarrels over women were
constant occurrences in such places, particularly on ‘Fanin street’ of which he
was in particular demand to brothel owners to attract and entertain customers.
Between the ages of sixteen and twenty, Huddie cut his teeth playing such
joints and had to learn to survive them. Whereas Ledbetter was always described
as a kind boy, such environments were not always kind back. Already strong from
years of manual labour, he was good at ‘knocking’ (fist-fighting), and was
given a pistol for his sixteenth birthday (not an uncommon present as it was
often needed for hunting as well as matters of honor and defense), which he
readily used at an after dance fight to scare off an opponent soon after
receiving the gun. As a performer and
‘musicianer’, Ledbetter’s talent distinguished himself from others at dances,
attracting both the affections of women and the jealousy of men. Several times
in this period Huddie returned to his parent’s home after an evening’s work
scathed and bleeding; worse off for the fight. At twenty he contracted gonorrhea
and had to quit the circuit while he took “Lafayette’s mixture” to treat the
disease. Now somewhat disillusioned with
the underground world he preferred the
civilized world of the church, but still found it necessary to visit red light
districts for work and attention. Nonetheless on the red light circuit, Huddie
had met countless other inspirational musicians, most notably Blind Lemon
Jefferson, and gained a mastery over the music of the scene.
Tragedy befell the Ledbetter family
when Huddie was arrested for his aggression with his pistol. In order to pay
Huddie’s legal fees, his parents had to sell their farm and land. However, as
much as it was necessary for Huddie to defend himself, there was a wider motive
behind his arrest. Oil companies had taken interest in, and purchased, the
property surrounding the Ledbetter farm in texas, and sought to bypass the
family’s decision not to sell up. Arresting Huddie was a means to this end in
forcing the family to sell through bankrupting them as they struggled to pay
Huddie’s legal fees.
Miraculously, Huddie broke out of
the local jail, evaded the police, who shot at him as he fled into a pine
forest (In the pines, in the pines, where
the sun never shines, and I shiver the whole night through), and he escaped
with his first wife to New Orleans, where he adopted the alias Walter Boyd. It
was there in 1917, that he was then convicted for the murder of William Scott.
The circumstances of the murder are unclear, the evidence suspect, and there is
serious doubt over Leadbelly’s guilt. Indeed, ‘Boyd’ and Scott held a complex
relationship of friendship and Jealousy. Scott was even married to Huddie’s
cousin, but the two regularly quarreled over women at dances, and it was after
such a quarrel that Scott was murdered, and ‘Boyd’ was blamed.
Now in prison and working on a
chain gang, Huddie tried several escapes, however after the ordeal of his final
attempt, where Huddie was chased down by hunting dogs, he accepted that escape
was impractical or, at least, was not worth getting killed over. Instead he led
the hardest working gang, and wrote songs to the Governor of Texas in appeal
for his release which was granted in 1925 (ain’t
you glad, that the good judge done signed my name, oh the judge done signed my
name).
His return to the music circuit was
short lived. Huddie was arrested and imprisoned again in 1930 for attempted
murder. This time it was for cutting a
white member of a Salvation Army band. Huddie’s side of the story was that the
band had taken offence when he began dancing to their tune and that he was
acting in self defence. The other side was that a racist remark had inflamed
Huddie, and provoked the fight.
Now in the hellish Angola prison,
where he gained the nickname Leadbelly,
after four years he once again achieved bail through promoting his musical
talents to the governor, famously with the help of John Lomax, and his son Alan.
Upon his release the Lomaxs continued to record Leadbelly, and John took him on
as a chauffeur, a degrading role that Leadbelly accepted for its stability as
he was determined never to return to prison.
Following the exposure of the
Lomax’s recordings, Huddie became estranged from the family as he found fame
and popularity among wider audiences. He endorsed Roosevelt’s presidency
writing several songs for the presidential candidate. Yet his sympathy for
America’s labour movements later brought him to the attention of an FBI watch
list of potential ‘un-American’ popular celebrities. He
became an icon in the New York Greenwich folk scene, appeared in Hollywood
films, and, ultimately, became one of the most influential folk singers of the
20th Century, indeed, of all time.
As far as Leadbelly’s style goes, the
performer is famed for preferring a 12 string guitar for its louder sound. His
voice was likewise powerful, and he had a style of tapping his feet into
complex syncopations to accompany his playing. As a multi-instrumentalist, he
was also competent on banjos, mandolins, and the accordion.
Along with his obvious talents as a
great musician and performer, Leadbelly’s expansive knowledge of folk blues and
country music gave his work and fame a greater significance. He was an
anthology of southern folk music, claiming to know more than five hundred
songs, who acted as a bridge between the old and new folk scenes. For example,
one of his most famous songs, Goodnight
Irene, has its roots in the 1860s. The Lomaxs recognized this significance
right of the bat and their first book Negro
Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly is as much an appreciation of the singer’s
archival like capabilities, as it is an examination of musical style.
With such an incredible life as
Leadbelly’s, it can, naturally, be framed in a variety of ways. But what sort
of a life was it? A man who at the mercy of white systematic oppression, at
risk to African Americans jealous of his talents and tastes, forever trying to
survive the economic struggle of a travelling musician yet who continued to
play the music he loved and lived so well; it is the life a man constantly
adapting to the hostilities and possibilities of his environment. As many of
his autobiographers have argued, it is the life of a loner.
***
I have recorded a version of Goodnight Irene, in tribute to Leadbelly. I can’t sing and I don’t
do it justice, but it was a pleasure to play it.
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