Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 01:56 PM

I guess my main reason (for not talking more about Leadbelly) is that I keep getting distracted by Winona Ryder.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 18 Nov 04 - 07:03 PM

Josh White was a terrific singer/performer. Sad anyone had so little taste as to "get snotty" about him. His son is pretty good, too, if he's still going. Ke went more into blues and jazz than his dad did, so I'm not so aware of what he's been up to.    Tw

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 11:20 AM

I just heard from Elijah Wald that Josh White Jr. was at the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Shame conference on Lead Belly last week, playing with Oscar Brand. Any one out there go?

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:14 PM

Where is that -- the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Shame conference? Or Elijah Wald? Oscar's a good guy.    Tw

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Nerd
Date: 19 Nov 04 - 04:50 PM

PG: yes, songster was a common term for the leadbelly/MJH type of singer.

Mark and Hootenanny, I did say that Leadbelly preferred a suit and tie, didn't I? :-)

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,Elijah Wald
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 01:11 AM

A couple of additions to the discussion......

"Songster" was a standard synonym for "singer" in the twenties, and while Mance Lipscomb indeed used the term Variety also used it for singers like Bing Crosby. It was only in the 1960s that blues historians reinvented it as a term for musicians like Lipscomb, John Hurt, and Leadbelly, who sang blues but also a wide variety of other material. However, it is important to remember that what really set those three apart was not the breadth of their repertoire, but rather the fact that they were "discovered" by people who were interested in documenting that breadth. Plenty of other musicians whose repertoires may well have been equally broad have been classed as pure blues singers simply because that was all that the people who recorded them wanted to record -- Robert and Tommy Johnson being prime examples. And this was not just because of the prejudices and fashions of the 1920s. One of the most prolific blues producers of the 1960s recently told me, in a discussion of Skip James's recording of Hoagy Carmichael's "Lazy Bones," "I hate that stuff. All those guys always wanted to record their version of 'Honeysuckle Rose,' and I'd have to tell them to stick to blues."

On Josh White, he was a popular gospel and blues performer on "race records" in the 1930s before ever being discovered by the white folk audience. His son, Josh Jr., does indeed remain active and is a fine musician. However, he is in no sense more of a blues and jazz singer than his father. Josh Sr. recorded with accompanists like Sidney Bechet and Mary Lou Williams, as well as a final session with Sonny Boy Williamson. Josh Jr. is more of a sixties-style folksinger a la Harry Belafonte, though he also does nice versions of his dad's stuff.
(And for more on Josh Sr., I wrote a biography of him, "Society Blues.")

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GLoux
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:45 AM

Elijah Wald, welcome to Mudcat...I enjoy your writing.

-Greg

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From:
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 10:38 PM

It's good to hear that people are talking about Lead Belly. Yes, there was a major event at the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame recently and our friend Tiny Robinson, Lead Belly's niece, was there. Tiny, who lives in Brentwood, TN, is the founder of the Lead Belly Foundation which is bent on educating kids about music of all kinds, but particularly Lead Belly's, which is practically the basis of all American folk music. Huddie learned to play music for house dances in the country between Mooringsport, LA and Karnack, TX and whatever songs got people up to dance and party, that's what he played.
Also he learned lots of gospel songs because most everybody in his family were church going members of the Shiloh Baptist Church near Mooringsport, where he is buried. He also played music at school closings, the end of year ceremonies at the black country schools. And if he was going to play at your house party you'd be guaranteed a crowd!

Subject: Where can I get Lead Belly Newsletter?
From: GUEST,London,David
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 08:02 PM

I bought some newsletters years ago from Sean Killeen, meaning to buy the whole collection one day. Since he died I've contacted The Lead Belly Society but get no answer. Does anyone know where I might buy some?

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 13 Mar 05 - 09:49 PM

Tannywheeler summed it up great I'm a-thinkin'!! The Lomax's did fine and extremely valuable work, and to diminish that with nitpicking using values of this century is not a good thing at all. If Leadbelly hasn't been mentioned lately, it's because we who venerated the man and loved his music have pretty much said what we felt about him already.

Son House, John Hurt, Sleepy John Estes, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Sam Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy, Wolf, Big Bill, Little Walter, Josh White, Sonny & Brownie, James Cotten, Gus Cannon, Skip James, Fred McDowell, Hammy Nixon, Walter Vinson, Jim Brewer, Gary Davis, Carl Martin, Ted Bogan, Howard Armstrong, Yank Rachel and many others were all still alive and waiting to be rediscovered in the 1960s. We got to hang out with, and hear, all of them. And many really could still do the music pretty damn well. We were there for that before these real roots experts, who truly had defined their art and their era, left this world behind. What great good luck it was to be there then!!!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 09:37 PM

The 96 sides on the JSP Box Set of 4 cds are listed in thread 72889:
Midnight Special

"Leadbelly Important Recordings 1934-1949," JSP Records, London, 2006. Five hours of his recordings.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: toadfrog
Date: 20 Jul 07 - 10:11 PM

Where is the rest of this thread?
Why does it break off on Nov. 14, 2004?
Am I going crazy?

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 21 Jul 07 - 02:45 AM

I'm sure this has been covered, but one problem with Leadbelly's coverage/reputation is that he is seen as a folksinger not a blues singer. As a result, he's judged in a separate category. It's a bit like Blind Willie Johnson who was brilliant but is known as a gospel singer even though his music is drenched in the blues.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Cool Beans
Date: 21 Jul 07 - 09:55 AM

Also, he hasn't put out anything in years and is pretty much coasting on his reputation.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Leadbelly
Date: 21 Jul 07 - 12:34 PM

Wait and see, Coolie! I'm coming back next time...

Subject: 61 years ago I was five and Lead Belly died...
From: PHJim
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 12:20 PM

Yup!
61 Years ago I was five, and Lead Belly died...

Subject: RE: 61 years ago I was 5 and Lead Belly died
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 12:32 PM

Same date? I.e., did Huddie die on March 11, on your fifth birthday?

FWIW, 61 years ago today I was 16 months and three days old.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 05:26 PM

61 years ago today, I wasn't.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: Mark Clark
Date: 11 Mar 10 - 10:59 PM

As was mentioned, part of the problem is that Lead Belly is considered a folk singer while other black musicians are considered blues singers. In fact all of them were playing any music they could get people to pay money to hear.

If you read Elijah Wald's well researched book Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues you discover that most of the musicians we consider bluesmen today in fact performed a wide variety of music from pop and jazz standards to folk songs,d sukie jumps and even hillbilly music.

The reason we view them differently today is that Lomax was an academic ethnomusicologist trying to document folk traditions in the U.S. When he recorded Lead Belly, he was working in that context, not the commercial record industry.

The performers we regard as bluesmen are seen that way because they were recorded by commercial record producers who only recorded their blues numbers. All the other music they played was ignored in favor of the blues numbers. These commercial producers were selling “race” records to a predominately African-American market and they saw no value in recording the wide range of music the “bluesmen” actually played.

It took the folk music boom of the 1950s and '60s to interest people in Lead Belly's music and they soon discovered other blues players that seemed---because of the available recordings---to be much hipper than Lead Belly. When commercial interest in folk music subsided, so did interest in Lead Belly even though “the blues” escaped being labeled as folk music and reentered the popular music markets.

Lead Belly's legacy is really a victim of his times, the divergent goals of recordists and his untimely death from ALS.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: MikeT
Date: 12 Mar 10 - 01:02 PM

Wow, what a coincidence, I found this thread while listening to 'Kisses Sweeter Than Wine' from the Weavers at Carnegie Hall album. What a great record! So, why doesn't anyone talk about the Weavers?

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: tenn_jim
Date: 30 Oct 11 - 11:01 AM

Huddie Ledbetter aka Lead Belly was a "songster" and songwriter. Sure, some of his songs were "blues", some "folk" and some "Jazz" and he did them all well. Just look at the singers who have covered his songs.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:28 AM

Finally, a decent thread.

Huddie, by the way, is pronounced "Hugh-dee."

He led a troubled life but he was a fount of great old roots music. Imagine if he lived in the days before recording--our knowledge of roots music would be incredibly poor. Makes you wonder who we did lose before there was recording technology that we would have benefitted from tremendously.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 12:43 AM

Oh, sheesh. You white boys (note the lower case w) have soo much angst. He was a Black man selling his song to buck up some bucks. He never made no money from his songs.

He never sang blues. He also never sung the blues. He wrote songs he felt. And there were few who'd piss him off. Inside or outside. NOW, get yer 12-string GUITar and tell me about it. In music or words.

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 01:54 AM

That was me, again. Sorry . . . .

Subject: RE: Why doesn't anyone talk about Leadbelly?
From: tenn_jim
Date: 31 Oct 11 - 01:08 PM

OK Guest ...I'm playing House of the Rising Sun.