Do we have some fans here??? He breaks my heart. I think most people just know him for being the writer of Black Girl or In the Pines, later made popular by mister Kurt Cobain... But he's a Beautiful folk musician. I love the work he did with Woody Guthrie especially. I love The Bourgeois Blues!
seriously guys? ...it's really important to me that ya'll go find some leadbelly to listen to and come and talk to me about it...
Go to Youtube.com and watch his video! It's cool. I really like "Where Did You Sleep Last Night", (shocker, I know, haha). Have you listened to Blind Willie Johnson or Skip James? They're absolutely amazing as well...
Oh, I've ever seen videos of him play before! sweetness!!! I do know Blind Willie Johnson, but I have not heard skip james, I'll look into him though.
Leadbelly music got me started on the 12-string. I had a book that had a lot of his solos transcribed. 'Fannin' Street' was one of my favorites. Ever hear of Blind Willie McTell?
Leadbelly's one of my favorites. Funny you should mention Mr Cobain, I saw saw him do that song, at a Sonic Youth show in between sets.
he's ok , but he certainly isn't one of my favourites , though i really like "good night irene" , the song he plays with woody guthrie , but , then again , it might just be because i like woody so much .
big leadbelly fan here. all of his songs were gorgeous and poignant; people should listen to him more.
Thought I'd resurrect this thread as I've just been listening to a Leadbelly collection. What strikes me is it's amazing how many of his songs I already know, but through artists who've covered him. I know that's true of a lot of the old blues guys, and a lot of them sadly got ripped off by 60's and 70's superbands. Goes to show how strong the original music was though.
I def. know what you mean, but I sort of disagree. I think covering these songs holds true to a long tradition of old timing music. Like from the turn of the century to the 1940's (and to now actually- but especually back then) It was completley not uncommon for all of these amazing artists to play all the same songs, and often even take these traditional folk songs and rewrite new words to them. Like the song Freight Train, or This Train is Bound for Glory, In the Pines (Black Girl), On Top of Old Smokey, SummerTime, Let's do it (lets fall in love, etc. etc. etc Are a few examples of old songs that have been covered by a million different amazing artists who all took these songs and made them their own (before 1950). Like people back then wrote AMAZING origional songs! my favorite of all time by far! But they also did lots of covers and straight out re-writes of peoples songs from before them, and even in their same era, and those were really great too. And following that tradition, I'm pretty down with people taking these brilliant inspirational songs, being moved by them, and playing them in a way that sort of makes them their own and orally keeps them alive through the generations...I play a lot of leadbelly and woody guthrie though so I clearly have a bit of a bias
