Leadbelly
 

Old American Folk artist, so I can expect no one will respond to this. I use to have collections but I lost all my music on my computer. Though if anyone shows any interest and wants and album I'll do my best to find something. He's been covered my everyone and their mom. A pretty extensive amount of songs and a really interesting life, born a couple months before the end of the Civil War.

http://www.myspace.com/huddiewilliamledbetter

more like grey goose, and the song about fishing are sweet

i like some of it...can't take too much at the same time.
but his life story is crazy...are woody guthrie and his son anything like him? i think they toured together....i'll expect no answer

I think Leadbelly and Woody colabed on an album or two. Though I've never listened to it but now that you've reminded me I'll find it and listen to it.* I wouldn't say Woody and him are a close listen. Leadbelly puts more blues into his music. If you're into old folk in general I'd say you'd like both. I've honestly never given Arlo Guthrie a second listen because it didn't seem too special.




*Edit: or not and some label just slapped both of their songs onto one album?

How have i only just found this thread.. i admittedly got into leadbelly due to jack white citing him as a major influence, but ive subsequently grown to love him. I think his is the greatest voice in blues and the diversity of his music set him apart from his contempories. I'd suggest King of the 12-string guitar or huddie ledbetters best

I think of leadbelly all the time. I adapted "Goodnight Irene" into a goodbye song that I sing to kids that do music classes with. The kids sing it over and over again.

He is an American icon.

^I wish really he was. America truley does have amazingly wonderful and wonderfully amazing roots. Not enough people as I would like recognize them though. Leadbelly is a damn legend.

hell, evidently, even the brits love him.

He is one of those artists that has the ability to write a song and the first time you hear it you think you have know it for your whole life.

I think that pretty much hits on the head and I think that's the definition of good folk.

Am I weird for liking Gallis Pole much better than the Led Zeppelin variation Gallows Pole?:

Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie are both great.

I absolutely love Leadbelly's music. He lived an absolutely crazy life, as did many blues musicians of the time, and was one of the greatest artists in American history. Sadly he's been long forgotten by many people.

In the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines... He really was a great musician. WONDERFUL folk and blues artist.

...

**** no. If anything you're right in the head.

Did any other football/blues fan notice the fact one of those insidious super bowl commercials during Super Bowl XLV was actually tune credited to Lead Belly?



I don't know the group that does the song, maybe it's just a cover version done for the VW commercial, the version I know was done by Ram Jam



...Ram Jam ...long live 70's blues/rock

Those of a certain age do. I dont know how old you are, Stu, but Leadbelly was one of the big influences on the skiffle movement.

Sometimes I live in the country
Sometimes I live in the town
Sometimes I get a great notion
To jump in the river and drown

Got into Leadbelly thanks to Kurt Cobain and Mark Lanegan.

^^for me it was a Woody and Leady tribute album called Folkways : An American Dream Shared

He's a serious candidate for most influential musician of the past 100 years.

Reading a biography on him right now. Amazing stuff.

I got his discography but I never really got into it. I've been meaning to read more up on him.

I'm bumping this because of how amazing leadbelly was!





Seriously, this man is the greatest blues singer ever!

He certainly is one of the greatest storytellers the genre had seen. There are other artists I hold above him as a whole (Son House, Charlie Patton, and Robert Johnson, among others), he's still among the greatest.

Lead Belly is oddly paired in my mind with AP Carter.
Both were conduits of music from the people to commercial scene.

What is a Lead Belly song? He didn't write Goodnight Irene or Rock Island Line, but they are Lead Belly songs. Similarly with lots of Carter Family songs.

Lead Belly's music got known by other people playing it, not so much him.

A friend recently turned me onto the version of In The Pines by Fantastic Negrito. Good stuff.

I have an odd question.

Next Friday, I have a radio show celebrating Lead Belly's birthday and I need to know how to pronounce "Fantastic Negrito"

Is it
n[eh]gr[ee]to
or
n[ih]gr[eh]to
or
n[ih]gr[ee]to?


[eh] as in "met"
[ee] as in "feat"
[ih] as in "sit"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBarS2VUqXc

[eh] as in "met"

Thank you.