Chapter 5: The Blues
Leadbelly, born Huddie Ledbetter in Louisiana around 1888, was a was a deeply complex and charismatic whose music captured both his extraordinary talent and the turbulence of his life. Known for his powerful voice and virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, Leadbelly’s songs ranged from heartfelt ballads to lively work songs and spirituals. Orphaned at a young age, he grew up in poverty amid the harsh realities of the segregated South, where music became both a means of personal expression and a tool for survival. His life was marked by bouts of violence and frequent run-ins with the law, including arrests related to fights and weapons charges. Leadbelly spent many years behind bars, most notably in Louisiana’s infamous Angola Prison, where his music would eventually draw the attention of folklorists who helped preserve his legacy.
It was during one of these incarcerations that father-and-son folklorist team John and Alan Lomax recorded Leadbelly for the Library of Congress. The Lomaxes were part of a broader movement of early 20th-century folklorists (also known as ethnomusicologists) who aimed to document and preserve oral musical traditions they feared were vanishing due to rapid social and technological changes. Their work was supported in part by New Deal cultural programs under the Roosevelt administration, which sought to promote American arts and heritage during the Great Depression. Beginning in the 1930s, the Lomaxes undertook extensive field recording trips across the American South and West, visiting prisons, plantations, rural towns, church services, and labor camps in search of music that was largely unwritten and passed down through performance. They used newly portable recording equipment, often lugging it into remote areas, to capture spirituals, work songs, field hollers, blues, and other regional styles directly from the communities that created them.
John Lomax, in particular, was motivated by a desire to preserve the "folk voice of America," and he saw African American musical traditions as central to that goal. Alan Lomax, his son, would go on to become one of the most influential ethnomusicologists of the 20th century, advocating for the importance of cultural equity and the preservation of marginalized musical voices around the world. Their efforts not only preserved a vast archive of American folk and blues music but also elevated musicians who might otherwise have remained unknown outside their local communities, like Leadbelly, to national attention.
The Lomaxes helped secure Leadbelly’s release and supported his career by organizing performances in clubs and academic settings, particularly in New York City. His recordings, which include enduring songs like “Goodnight, Irene,” “Cotton Fields,” and “Black Betty,” remain vital documents of early blues and folk traditions. Leadbelly’s heavy thumb-picked rhythm and commanding vocal delivery influenced generations of musicians, including artists of the 1950s and 1960s folk revival. Pete Seeger, for example, credited Leadbelly as a key inspiration, even releasing an instructional album titled 12 String Guitar as Played by Lead Belly (1962).
Leadbelly’s preservation through the efforts of folklorists like the Lomaxes reminds us that much of early blues history survives because of individuals and institutions committed to documenting it not because the commercial industry saw its value at the time.