wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
Huddie Ledbetter ( -- 1949 ) was a musician; born near Morringsport, La. A legendary singer and guitarist, he was raised near Shreveport, La., worked on farms in Texas, and began performing in Dallas, Texas, as a protégé of Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1910s.
(Leadbelly got his own nickname because of his deep bass voice.) In 1917 he was sentenced to prison on a murder conviction; eight years later he literally sang a plea of mercy to the Texas governor and was pardoned.
A similar episode occurred in 1935: In 1930 he had been sentenced to ten years for wounding a group of men with a knife; in 1934 Leadbelly composed a song for the Louisiana governor, and, with the intervention of the folklorists John and Alan Lomax, won a reprieve once again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs3mj1E8LSU
Goodnight Irene is perhaps his most famous song it it is usually done as a 3/4 time waltz, there are many versions with differing verses and the Weavers version which was released in the 1950's was a sanitized version of the original, which replaces "gets you in my dreams" with "see you in my dreams" The Weavers' lyrics are the ones generally used today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTvIAxS5-nc
The version I like the most is by the slide guitarist Kelly Joe Phelpps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTvIAxS5-nc