Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

Leadbelly

album cover

The Best of an American Griot

Some musicians are born composers. Some are hunter-gatherers, soaking up old songs and styles and repopularizing, if not rescuing, them. Huddie Ledbetter, the guitarist and singer who performed as Leadbelly, was a bit of both. He wrote or substantially rewrote several enduring pieces—"Goodnight Irene," which he performed just as "Irene," was a hit for the Weavers shortly after he died nearly penniless. But he's equally revered for renditions of folk songs he picked up while in prison, including odes to trains like "Rock Island Line" and work songs like "Cotton Fields."

The son of a sharecropper, Leadbelly (1888–1949) was born in Louisiana and first began to play guitar at age seven. He drifted as a young man, and found himself in jail more than once. He won notoriety in 1924 when he petitioned Texas governor Pat Neff for early release and won by writing and singing a song. In 1933, Leadbelly was "discovered" in Louisiana's Angola prison by folklorist John Lomax and his son Alan, who'd come to the prison to document folk songs. Leadbelly performed "Irene," a song he said his uncle taught him, for the Lomax tape recorder, and upon his release went to work with the Lomaxes as a chauffeur and assistant on field recording trips. Eventually (after more troubles with the law), Leadbelly left the Lomaxes, and in 1936 took up residence in New York, where he was embraced by a group of activist folk and blues artists, including Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee.

Leadbelly recorded off and on during the 1930s, but it wasn't until 1941, when he joined up with Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways records, that he documented decent representations of his signature pieces. This disc, compiled from the original masters, features many Leadbelly classics as well as the waltz-meter title track, one of the most harrowing pieces in his songbook. These show why Leadbelly is so revered: His voice is authoritative and bracingly clear, and his playing has the drive of a fearsome rhythm section even when, as per his custom, he is playing alone. All its songs, both originals and covers, reveal Leadbelly as one of the few figures in American music to function the way griots do in Africa—preserving the heart and the essential narratives of a people by passing along, and, crucially, reanimating, their songs.

Genre: Blues, Folk
Released: 1996, Smithsonian Folkways
Key Tracks: "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?," "Rock Island Line," "Good Morning Blues."
Catalog Choice: King of the 12-String Guitar
Next Stop: Woody Guthrie: Dust Bowl Ballads
After That: Blind Boy Fuller: Truckin' My Blues Away
Book Pages: 440–441