Lead Belly | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as |
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| Born | Huddie William Ledbetter (1888-01-23)January 23, 1888[1](disputed) Mooringsport, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Died | December 6, 1949(1949-12-06) (aged 61) New York City, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1903–1949 |
| Labels | RCA Victor,Asch,Capitol |
Huddie William Ledbetter (/ˈhjuːdi/HYOO-dee; January 1888[1][2] or 1889[3] – December 6, 1949),[1] better known by the stage nameLead Belly, was an Americanfolk andblues singer notable for his strong vocals, virtuosity on thetwelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines" (also known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"), "Pick a Bale of Cotton", "Goodnight, Irene", "Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil".
Ledbetter usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano,mandolin, harmonica, violin, andwindjammer (accordion).[4] In some recordings he also used clapping or stomping to accompany his singing.
Ledbetter's songs covered a wide range of genres, includinggospel music,blues, andfolk music, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such asFranklin D. Roosevelt,Adolf Hitler,Jean Harlow,Jack Johnson, theScottsboro Boys andHoward Hughes. Ledbetter was posthumously inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 and theLouisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008.
Though many releases credit him as "Leadbelly", he wrote his stage name as "Lead Belly". This is the spelling on his tombstone[5][6] and is used by the Lead Belly Foundation.[7] He did not care for the "Lead Belly" stage name and always introduced himself by his given name, Huddie Ledbetter.[8]
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The only son of Sallie Brown and Wesley Ledbetter (she had an older son, and the couple adopted a daughter when Huddie was a toddler), Huddie Ledbetter was born on a plantation nearMooringsport, Louisiana.[9] On hisWorld War II draft registration card in 1942, he gave his birthplace as "Freeport" (Shreveport), Louisiana. There is uncertainty over his precise date and year of birth. The Lead Belly Foundation gives his birth date as January 20, 1889,[3] his grave marker gives the year 1889, and his 1942 draft registration card states January 23, 1889.
The1900 United States census lists "Hudy Ledbetter" as 12 years old, born January 1888, and the1910 and1930 censuses also give his age as corresponding to a birth in 1888. The 1940 census lists his age as 51, with information supplied by wife Martha. These records were made by census takers, and ages and dates were defined in terms of the census date. The booksBlues: A Regional Experience by Eagle and LeBlanc andEncyclopedia of Louisiana Musicians by Tomko give January 23, 1888,[1][10] while theEncyclopedia of the Blues gives January 20, 1888.[2]
His parents hadcohabited for several years. They married on February 26, 1888, perhaps after his birth that year. When Huddie was five years old, the family settled inBowie County, Texas, where they eventually became landowners.
By the 1910 census ofHarrison County, Texas, "Hudy Ledbetter" was living next door to his parents in a separate household with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson. Aletha is recorded as age 19 and married one year. Others say she was 15 when they married in 1908. Ledbetter received his first instrument in Texas, anaccordion, from his uncle Terrell. Ledbetter and his wife had at least two children when they left for the Dallas/Fort Worth area, working as farm laborers while Ledbetter, in his early twenties, sought opportunities as a musician.
By 1903, Huddie was already a "musicianer",[11]: 28 a singer and guitarist of some note. He performed toShreveport audiences in St. Paul's Bottoms, a notoriousred-light district. He began to develop his own style of music after exposure to the various musical influences on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a row of saloons, brothels, and dance halls in the Bottoms. This area is now referred to as Ledbetter Heights.
In 1915, Ledbetter briefly served on a Texas chain gang, from which he escaped. In 1918, under the name of Walter Boyd, he was convicted of murder in Texas and sentenced to 30 years in prison. After writing a song pleading for clemency, Ledbetter was pardoned by GovernorPat Morris Neff in 1925.[12] In 1930, he was arrested, convicted of attempted murder, and sentenced to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as theAngola Penitentiary, where he was "discovered" in a 1933 visit byfolkloristsJohn Lomax and his teenaged son,Alan Lomax.[13] They were recording varieties of local music in the South as a project to preserve traditional music for the Library of Congress. This was one of numerous cultural projects during the Great Depression.[14]
Deeply impressed by Ledbetter's vibrant tenor and extensive repertoire, the Lomaxes recorded him in 1933 on portablealuminum disc recording equipment for theLibrary of Congress project. They returned with new and better equipment in July 1934, recording numerous songs. While in prison, Ledbetter may have first heard the traditional prison song "Midnight Special"; his versions became famous.[15] On August 1, Ledbetter was released after having served nearly all of his minimum sentence. The Lomaxes had taken a record and a petition seeking his release to Louisiana GovernorOscar K. Allen at Ledbetter's request, but there is no evidence that this had any effect on his release. In fact, a prison official later wrote to John Lomax denying that Ledbetter's singing had anything to do with his release from prison. (State prison records confirm he was eligible for this due to good behavior.) But, both Ledbetter and the Lomaxes promoted the idea that Ledbetter had yet again sung his way to freedom.
With theGreat Depression ongoing and Alan Lomax ill[15] and unable to assist his father in song collecting, Ledbetter and Lomax teamed up in September, 1934.[8] For three months, Ledbetter, forty-six years old, assisted the 67-year-old Lomax in his folk song collecting around the South.
In December 1934, Ledbetter participated in a "smoker" (group sing-along) at aModern Language Association meeting at a hotel in Philadelphia. He was written up in the press as a convict who had sung his way out of prison. On New Year's Day, 1935, the pair arrived in New York City, where Lomax was scheduled to meet with his publisher,Macmillan, about a new collection of folk songs. The newspapers were eager to write about the "singing convict".Time magazine made one of its firstMarch of Timenewsreels about him. Lead Belly attained fame—although not fortune.
On January 23–25, 1935, Ledbetter had the first of several recording sessions withAmerican Record Corporation (ARC). These sessions, combined with two others on February 5 and March 25, yielded 53 takes. Of those recordings, only six were ever released during Ledbetter's lifetime. ARC decided to simultaneously release these songs on six different labels they owned: Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, and Paramount.[11]: 159–60, 292–95 These recordings achieved little commercial success. Part of the reason for the poor sales may have been that ARC released only hisblues songs rather than the folk songs for which he would later become better known. Ledbetter continued to struggle financially. Like many performers, what income he made during his career came from touring, not from record sales. In February 1935, he married his girlfriend, Martha Promise, who came north from Louisiana to join him.
During February Ledbetter recorded his repertoire with Alan Lomax, who also recorded other African Americans. Lomax interviewed Ledbetter about his life for their forthcoming book,Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly (1936). The Lomax book contains numerous sensational accounts of uncertain authenticity.[8] According to the authors, the work was not an "accurate biography" but a "loosely woven texture of unreconstructed stories."[8]
In March 1935, Ledbetter accompanied John Lomax on a previously scheduled two-week lecture tour of colleges and universities in the Northeast, culminating atHarvard. At the end of the month, John Lomax decided he could no longer work with Ledbetter. He gave him and Martha enough money to return by bus to Louisiana. He also gave Martha the money her husband had earned during three months of performing, but in installments, on the pretext that Lead Belly would spend it all on drinking if he was given a lump sum. From Louisiana, Ledbetter successfully sued Lomax for both the full amount of his earnings and release from his management contract. The quarrel was bitter, with hard feelings on both sides. In the midst of the legal wrangling, Ledbetter wrote to Lomax proposing they team up again, but this did not happen. The book that the Lomaxes published about Lead Belly in the fall of 1936 proved a commercial failure.[16]
In January 1936, Ledbetter returned to New York on his own, without John Lomax, in an attempted comeback. He performed twice a day at Harlem'sApollo Theater during the Easter season. He developed a live dramatic recreation of theMarch of Time newsreel (itself a recreation), which was about his prison encounter with John Lomax, when he was still wearing uniform stripes. By this time, he was no longer associated with Lomax.
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Life magazine ran a three-page article titled "Lead Belly: Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel" in its issue of April 19, 1937. It included a full-page, color (rare in those days) picture of him sitting on grain sacks playing his guitar and singing.[17] Also included was a striking photograph of his wife Martha Promise (identified in the article as his manager). Other photos showed Ledbetter's hands playing the guitar (with the caption "these hands once killed a man"), Texas GovernorPat M. Neff, and the "ramshackle" Texas State Penitentiary. The article attributes both of his pardons to his singing his petitions to the governors, who were so moved that they pardoned him. The article closed by saying that Lead Belly "may well be on the brink of a new and prosperous period."[17]
Ledbetter failed to stir the enthusiasm ofHarlem audiences. Instead, he attained success playing at concerts and benefits for an audience offolk music aficionados. He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture, having learned from his participation in Lomax's college lectures. He was especially successful with his repertoire of children's game songs (as a younger man in Louisiana he had sung regularly at children's birthday parties in the black community). Black novelistRichard Wright wrote about him as a heroic figure in theDaily Worker, of which Wright was the Harlem editor. The two men became personal friends. In contrast to Wright, who was then a communist, commentators described Ledbetter as apolitical. He was known to supportWendell Willkie, the centristRepublican candidate for president, for whom he wrote a campaign song. Ledbetter also wrote the song "The Bourgeois Blues", which has class-conscious and anti-racist lyrics.
In 1939, Ledbetter was involved in an altercation after a small gathering in New York City and accused of stabbing a man. Alan Lomax, then 24, took him under his wing and helped raise money for his legal expenses, dropping out of graduate school to do so. But, based in part on Ledbetter's apparent notoriety, the judge sentenced him to a year in Rikers. After gaining release, Ledbetter appeared as a regular on Lomax andNicholas Ray's groundbreakingCBS radio showBack Where I Come From, broadcast nationwide.
He also performed in nightclubs withJosh White, becoming a fixture in New York City's surging folk music scene and befriending the likes ofSonny Terry,Brownie McGhee,Woody Guthrie, andPete Seeger, all fellow performers onBack Where I Come From.[18]
In 1940, Ledbetter recorded for RCA Victor, one of the biggest record companies at the time. These sessions in California were held on June 15 and 17, with theGolden Gate Quartet accompanying some songs. The recordings resulted in the album,The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs, being issued byVictor Records. The album included sheets with extensive notes and song texts prepared by Alan Lomax. According to Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, "it was one of the finest public presentations of Leadbelly's music: well recorded, well advertised, well documented. And the album justified its reputation as a landmark in African American folk music."[11]: 220–22, 298–300 Several of the recordings from these sessions were also issued as singles byBluebird Records.[19]
In 1941, Ledbetter was introduced toMoses "Moe" Asch by mutual friends. Asch owned a recording studio and small record label, which mainly released folk records for the local New York City market. He later foundedFolkways Records.[20]: 22–23 Between 1941 and 1944, Ledbetter released three albums under the Asch Recordings label.[11]: 225–26, 304–07 During the first half of the 1940s, Ledbetter also recorded for theLibrary of Congress.
Ledbetter frequently performedSouthern Blues at concerts bySi-lan Chen.[21]
In 1944, he went to California, where he recorded strong sessions forCapitol Records. He lodged with a studio guitar player on Merrywood Drive in Laurel Canyon. Later he returned to New York City. In 1949, Lead Belly had a regular radio show,Folk Songs of America, broadcast on station WNYC in New York, onHenrietta Yurchenco's show on Sunday nights. Later in the year, he began his first European tour with a trip to France, but fell ill before its completion and was diagnosed withamyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), orLou Gehrig's disease (a motor neuron disease).[14] Ledbetter was the first American country blues musician to achieve success in Europe.[18] His final concert was at theUniversity of Texas at Austin in a tribute to his former mentor,John Lomax, who had died the previous year. Martha also performed at that concert, singing spirituals with Ledbetter.
Ledbetter died later that year in New York City. He was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery, inMooringsport, Louisiana, 8 miles (13 km) west ofBlanchard, in Caddo Parish.[5] He is honored with a statue across from the Caddo Parish Courthouse, inShreveport. Ledbetter's niece, activist Greshun De Bouse, founded National Huddie Ledbetter Day (August 1 annually), and received proclamations from the mayors of Oil City, LA (where Ledbetter worked) and Shreveport, LA in 2023.[22]
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Ledbetter was imprisoned multiple times beginning in 1915, when he was convicted of carrying a pistol and sentenced to time on the Harrison Countychain gang. He later escaped and found work in nearbyBowie County under the assumed name of Walter Boyd.[23]
In January 1918, he was imprisoned at the Imperial Farm (Central Unit)[24] inSugar Land, Texas, after being convicted of killing a relative, Will Stafford. In 1925, he was pardoned and released after writing a song to Texas GovernorPat Morris Neff seeking his freedom, having served the minimum seven years of a 7-to-35-year sentence. He was credited with good behavior, which included entertaining the guards and fellow prisoners. He also appealed for mercy to Neff's known religious beliefs. It was a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (most Southern judicial systems had no provision for approving parole from prison).[25] After meeting Ledbetter in 1924, Neff returned to the prison several times after he was incarcerated again. He brought guests to the prison on Sunday picnics to hear Ledbetter perform.[11]: 85
In 1930, Ledbetter was sentenced toLouisiana State Penitentiary (nicknamed "Angola") after a summary trial for attempted homicide for stabbing a man in a fight. In 1939, Ledbetter served his final jail term for assault after stabbing a man in a fight inManhattan.
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There are several conflicting stories about how Ledbetter acquired the nickname "Lead Belly", it probably happened while he was in prison. Some claim his fellow inmates called him "Lead Belly" as a play on his family name and his physical toughness. Others say he earned the name after being wounded in the stomach withbuckshot.[18] Another theory is that the name refers to his ability to drinkmoonshine, the homemade liquor that Southern farmers, black and white, made to supplement their incomes.[26]
Blues singerBig Bill Broonzy thought it came from a supposed tendency to lie about as if "with a stomach weighted down by lead" in the shade when the chain gang was supposed to be working.[27]
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Lead Belly styled himself "King of the Twelve-String Guitar", and despite his use of other instruments, such as the accordion, the most enduring image of Lead Belly as a performer is wielding his unusually largeStella twelve-string.[28] This guitar had a slightly longerscale length than a standard guitar, increasing the tension on the instrument, which, given the added tension of the six extra strings, meant that a trapeze-style tailpiece was needed to help resist bridge lifting. It had slotted tuners and ladder bracing.[citation needed]
Ledbetter played with finger picks much of the time, using a thumb pick to provide walking bass lines described as "tricky" and "inventive",[29] and occasionally to strum.[30] This technique, combined with low tunings and heavy strings, gives many of his recordings a piano-like sound. Scholars have suggested much of his guitar playing was inspired equally bybarrelhouse piano and the MexicanBajo Sexto, a type of guitar that he encountered in Texas and Louisiana.[31]
Ledbetter's tunings are debated by both modern and contemporary musicians and blues enthusiasts alike, but it seems to be a down-tuned variant of standard tuning. Footage of his chording is scarce, so trying to decode his chords is difficult. It is likely that he tuned his guitar strings relative to one another, so that the actual notes shifted as the strings wore. Such down-tuning was a common technique before the development oftruss rods, and was intended to prevent the instrument's neck from warping.
Ledbetter's playing style was popularized byPete Seeger, who adopted the twelve-string guitar in the 1950s and released an instructional LP and book using Lead Belly as an exemplar of technique. In an April 1963 interview on Folk Music Worldwide, Seeger characterized Lead Belly as his silent mentor: "Yeah, and when I stop to think of it, he was my main music teacher although he didn't know it. I'd follow him around and watch his hands closely. I admired him so."[32]
In some of the recordings in which Ledbetter accompanied himself, he made an unusual type of grunt between his verses, sometimes described as "haah!" Songs such as "Looky Looky Yonder", "Take This Hammer",[14] "Linin' Track", and "Julie Ann Johnson" feature this unusual vocalization. In "Take This Hammer", Lead Belly explained: "Every time the men say, 'Haah,' the hammer falls. The hammer rings, and we swing, and we sing."[33] The "haah" sound can also be heard in work chants sung by Southern railroad section workers, "gandy dancers", in which it was used to coordinate work crews as they laid and maintained tracks.
In 1976, a highly fictionalized biopic titledLeadbelly was released, directed byGordon Parks and featuringRoger E. Mosley as Lead Belly.
In 2022, Richard Walters played Lead Belly in an episode ofMurdoch Mysteries (S15 Ep21 – Devil Music).
In 1950,The Weavers' recording of their arrangement of Lead Belly's "Irene", released as "Good Night, Irene", was the first folk song to reach #1 on the U.S. charts, selling some two million copies.[34]
Kurt Cobain promoted the legacy of Lead Belly, and some modern rock audiences owe their familiarity with Lead Belly to Nirvana's performance of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (which Lead Belly called "In the Pines") on a televised concert later released asMTV Unplugged in New York.[35] Cobain refers to his attempt to convinceDavid Geffen to purchase Lead Belly's guitar for him in an interval before the song is played. In his notebooks, Cobain listed Lead Belly'sLast Session Vol. 1 as one of the 50 albums most influential in the formation of Nirvana's sound.[36] It was included inNME's "The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard list".[37]
Ram Jam, an American rock band, had a hit with the song "Black Betty", which they adapted into a rock song in 1977. "Black Betty" was recorded by Lead Belly in 1939.
Bob Dylan credits Ledbetter for getting him into folk music. In hisNobel Prize lecture, Dylan said "somebody – somebody I'd never seen before – handed me a Lead Belly record with the song 'Cotton Fields' on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I'd never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I'd been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times."[38] Dylan also pays homage to him in "Song to Woody" on hisself-titled debut album.
Lead Belly recordings were instrumental in starting the Britishskiffle revival, which in turn produced several musicians prominent during theBritish Invasion.Lonnie Donegan's recording of "Rock Island Line", released as a single in late 1955, signaled the start of the skiffle craze.George Harrison ofThe Beatles was quoted as saying, "if there was no Lead Belly, there would have been no Lonnie Donegan; no Lonnie Donegan, no Beatles. Therefore no Lead Belly, no Beatles."[39] In aBBC tribute in 1999, which marked the 50th anniversary of Ledbetter's death,Van Morrison – while sitting alongsideRonnie Wood ofThe Rolling Stones – claimed that the British popular music scene of the 1960s wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Lead Belly's influence. "I'd put my money on that," he said. Wood concurred.[40]
Indian singerBhupen Hazarika—who was, in general, influenced by spirituals during his days as a student in the US—transcreated Lead Belly's singing of "We're in the Same Boat Brother"[41] into theAssamese language as "Ami ekekhon nawore zatri" (আমি একেখন নাৱৰে যাত্ৰী).[42][43] Later, he also released aBengali language version as "Mora jatri eki toronir" (মোরা যাত্রী একই তরণীর).[44]
In 2001, English-Canadian blues singerLong John Baldry released his final studio album,Remembering Leadbelly. It contains cover versions of Lead Belly songs, and features a six-minuteAlan Lomax interview.
George Ezra developed his singing style from trying to sing like Lead Belly. "On the back of the record, it said his voice was so big, you had to turn your record player down," Ezra says. "I liked the idea of singing with a big voice, so I tried it, and I could."[45]
In 2015, in celebration of Lead Belly's 125th birthday, several events were held.The Kennedy Center, in collaboration with theGrammy Museum heldLead Belly at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster, a musical event featuringRobert Plant,Alison Krauss, andBuddy Miller withViktor Krauss as headliners andDom Flemons as host, with special appearances byLucinda Williams,Alvin Youngblood Hart,Billy Hector,Valerie June,Shannon McNally,Josh White Jr., andDan Zanes, among others.[46] Also, in Washington, D.C.,Bourgeois Town: Lead Belly in Washington DC by theLibrary of Congress was held where Todd Harvey interviewed Ledbetter's family members about their relative, his contributions to American culture and world music and an overview of the significant Lead Belly materials in the center's archive.[47] In London, England, theRoyal Albert Hall heldLead Belly Fest, a musical event featuringVan Morrison,Eric Burdon,Jools Holland,Billy Bragg,Paul Jones, and more.[48]
Influenced by the sinking of theTitanic in April 1912, Ledbetter wrote the song "The Titanic",[49] his first composition on the twelve-string guitar, which later became his signature instrument. Initially played when performing withBlind Lemon Jefferson (1893–1929) in and aroundDallas, Texas, the song is about champion African-American boxerJack Johnson's being denied passage on theTitanic. Johnson had in factbeen denied passage on a ship for being black, but it was not theTitanic.[50] Still, the song includes the lyric "Jack Johnson tried to get on board. The Captain, he says, 'I ain't haulin' no coal!' Fare thee,Titanic! Fare thee well!" Ledbetter later noted he had to leave out this passage when playing in front of white audiences.[51]
In possibly the earliest audio recording of the phrase, Ledbetter urgedBlack listeners to "stay woke" in the spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys". The song tells the story ofnine Black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931. Ledbetter warns his listeners, "So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open."[52][53]
| Release year | Title (A-side/B-side) | Label | Catalog Number | Recording Date | Matrix Number | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1935 | All Out and Down Packin' Trunk | Banner | 33359 | January 23, 1935 | 16688-2 16685-1 | American Record Corporation simultaneously released these songs on six different labels they owned |
| Melotone | M13326 | |||||
| Oriole | 8438 | |||||
| Perfect | 0314 | |||||
| Romeo | 5438 | |||||
| Paramount | 14006 | |||||
| 1935 | Four Day Worry Blues New Black Snake Moan | Banner | 33360 | January 23, 1935 | 16689-2 16691-2 | American Record Corporation simultaneously released these songs on six different labels they owned |
| Melotone | M13327 | |||||
| Oriole | 8439 | |||||
| Perfect | 0315 | |||||
| Romeo | 5439 | |||||
| Paramount | 14017 | |||||
| 1936 | Becky Deem, She Was a Gamblin' Girl Pig Meat Papa | Banner | 6-04-55 | January 23, 1935, March 25, 1935 | 16678-1 17181-1 | American Record Corporation simultaneously released these songs on six different labels they owned |
| Melotone | 6-04-55 | |||||
| Oriole | 6-04-55 | |||||
| Perfect | 6-04-55 | |||||
| Romeo | 6-04-55 | |||||
| Paramount | 6-04-55 | |||||
| 1940 | Sail On, Little Girl, Sail On Don't You Love Your Daddy No More? | Bluebird | B-8550 | June 15, 1940, June 17, 1940 | 051505 051325 | |
| 1940 | Alberta T.B. Blues | Bluebird | B-8559 | June 15, 1940 | 051507 051503 | |
| 1940 | Easy Rider Worried Blues | Bluebird | B-8570 | June 17, 1940 | 051322 051324 | |
| 1941 | Roberta The Red Cross Store Blues | Bluebird | B-8709 | June 15, 1940 | 051506 051504 | |
| 1941 | New York City You Can't Lose-a Me Cholly | Bluebird | B-8750 | June 17, 1940 | 051323-1 051326-1 | |
| 1941 | Good Morning Blues Leaving Blues | Bluebird | B-8791 | June 15, 1940 | 051501 051502 | |
| 1942 | I'm on My Last Go-Round | Bluebird | B-8981 | June 15, 1940 | 051508-1 | This was the b-side to "Thirsty Mama Blues" by theHot Lips Page Trio |
| 1945[54] | Rock Island Line Eagle Rock Rag | Capitol | 10021 | October 4, 1944, October 27, 1944 | 398-3A1 457-2A | Included in the five-disc Capitol Album CE-16,The History of Jazz Vol. 1: The 'Solid' South |
| 1946[55] | Yellow Gal When the Boys Were on the Western Plain | Musicraft | 310 | February 17, 1944 | 5129 5130–1 | |
| 1946 | Roberta | Musicraft | 311 | February 17, 1944 | 5126–3 5133 | |
| 1946 | Where Did You Sleep Last Night? In New Orleans | Musicraft | 312 | February 17, 1944 | 5128 5132 | |
| 1946 | Bill Brady Pretty Flowers in Your Back Yard | Musicraft | 313 | February 17, 1944 | 5127 5131 | |
| 1946[56] | Easy Rider Pigmeat | Disc | 5501 | June 1946 | ||
| 1947[57] | Sweet Mary Blues Grasshopers in My Pillow | Capitol | A40038 | October 27, 1944 | 459-2A 460-3A | |
| 1948 | Irene | Capitol | 40130 | October 11, 1944 | 413-3A 416-3A | |
| 1948[58] | Digging My Potatoes Defense Blues | Disc | 5085 | June 1946 | D-385 D-386 |
| Release year | Title | Label | Catalog Number | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | Negro Sinful Songs | Musicraft | Album 31 | |
| 1940 | The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs | Victor | P-50 | |
| 1941 | Play Parties in Song and Dance | Asch | ||
| 1942 | Work Songs of the U.S.A. | Asch | ||
| 1944 | Songs by Lead Belly | Asch | A-343 | |
| 1946 | Negro Folk Songs | Disc | 660 | |
| 1947 | Midnight Special | Disc | 726 | Featuring Woody Guthrie and Cisco Huston |
TheLibrary of Congress recordings, made byJohn andAlan Lomax from 1934 to 1943, were released in a six-volume series byRounder Records:
TheFolkways recordings, done forMoses Asch from 1941 to 1947, were released in a three-volume series bySmithsonian Folkways:
Smithsonian Folkways has released several other collections of his recordings:
Jack Johnson denied access on Titanic.
