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Since
Shreveport and Caddo Parish were once members of the old East Texas
Chamber of Commerce, it is appropriate for the East Texas Historical
Association to consider Huddie Leadbetter, better known as Leadbelly,
as part of our past—especially since at least one of his prison sentences
was served in this region.
Leadbetter was born in 1888 on a farm near Mooringsport, Louisiana,
the son of an African American tenant farmer and his half-Indian wife.
The family later purchased a farm of its own in Texas,
and even after he became an entertainer Leadbetter continued to do
farm work in the summertime.
When Leadbetter learned to play the guitar he returned to Shreveport
to begin a career in music as a blues solo singer. He performed in
black nightclubs and saloons in various places in Louisiana and in
Texas, where he got into trouble with
the law for murder in 1918.
While serving a thirty-year prison sentence Leadbetter acquired his
famous nickname, Leadbelly. Various stories attempt to explain it
but the most colorful is that Leadbetter was shot in the stomach,
hence "Leadbelly."
Texas Governor Pat Neff pardoned Leadbelly in 1925 after hearing him
sing and play "Blues," especially a song the convict wrote in Neff's
honor. He went back to entertaining and the often underworld atmosphere
in which such segregated entertainers lived and performed then, and
in 1930 once again began a sentence for assault and attempted murder
in Louisiana's infamous Angola Prison. |
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there, Leadbelly was visited and recorded by the Texas-based but nationally
significant gatherer of folk music, Alan Lomax. Leadbelly once again
won early release from prison through Lomax' intervention, and for
a time traveled with Lomax, performing his unique blues style accompanied
by playing a twelve-string guitar. Eventually he performed in New
York and Washington with singers such as Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie,
and continued to compose blues, including his best known piece, "Good
Night, Irene," which became a hit when the Weavers recorded it after
Leadbelly's death in 1949. |
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Huddie
Leadbetter, a.k.a. Leadbelly, has been inducted as a member of the
Nashville Song Writers Association’s International Hall of Fame, the
Blues Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. None of his
wives were named Irene.
© Archie
P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
October 1, 2007 column
A syndicated column in over 70 East Texas newspapers
This column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical
Association. Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and
author of more than 20 books on Texas.
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