![]() ![]() One can certainly understand why, when Neff stopped by for a visit, Lead Belly wanted to make a positive impression.ĭropping the raunchier material from his typical setlist, Lead Belly sang and played religious songs like What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and – at Neff's request – country/bluegrass and folk standards like Old Dan Tucker and Down in the Valley. Needless to say, circumstances in Sugar Land prison – where Lead Belly was serving his sentence – were bleak at the best of times. ![]() “I want the boys of Texas to realize that the penitentiary is the very worst place in the world to have to go to,“ Neff declared, “only through the dissemination of this knowledge can the present wave of crime be stopped.“ Neff had been elected to office in 1920 on a hard-nosed, law-and-order platform, with particular emphasis on one point: no pardons would be issued from his office to prisoners. ![]() Woody Guthrie (left) and Lead Belly perform together in Chicago, Illinois, circa 1940 (Image credit: Stephen Deutch/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images) It was during the first of those prison sentences – set originally at 30 years – that Lead Belly found himself performing, as he often did to entertain guards and fellow inmates, for one Pat Morris Neff, then the Governor of Texas. ![]() Lead Belly's acoustic guitar also served him well in prison, where he spent a number of years – in two stints, in two different states – after killing a man in a fight in Dallas in 1918, and, later, after injuring a man in another fight in Louisiana in 1930. Referencing Lead Belly's trademark acoustic 12-string guitar, Guthrie once recalled, “I listened as he tuned up his twelve-string Stella and eased his fingers up and down along the neck in the same way that the library and museum clerk touched the frame of the best painting in their gallery.“ Toughness aside, though, Lead Belly was a magnificent guitarist with a deft touch. Wherever it came from, 'Lead Belly' was – in Woody Guthrie's words – “the hard name of a hard man.“ Others said it sprang from his undeniable toughness. Some said it was due to his ability to drink incredible amounts of liquor some said there was buckshot lodged in his abdomen. By all accounts, Huddie Ledbetter led quite a life. There are a number of theories as to how he got his stage name, all of them fantastic. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |