I can understand Lonnie Donnegan. Theres quite a lot about Leadbelly that I don't really understand. rather like Robert Johnson, Huddie seems to inhabit a savage landscape. I listen to the music and despite the brilliant musicianship -he's talking about a world I'm not familiar with. (thank God, I am tempted to say.) I listen to the songs and can't begin to grasp how they worked in a social context. The movie Leadbelly was, to my mind at least, an honourable attempt to show how how they might have worked - but they smoothed out the music a lot to achieve this. all of his biographers say for example that Huddie was a brilliant childrens entertainer, that I really don't get. Lonnie I listen to for fun. Put on Cumberland Gasp, close your eyes , and you can almost see the st kids jiving and the stocking tops.
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