?Women and Liquor, that was his problem. My father got him to marry his girl, Martha, and that settled him for a while, a week or two. He called himself ?the twelve-string champion guitar player of the world,? and I guess he was. I never heard anybody who could play it better. He loved being the best. He wanted to stay the best as long as he was alive.? He?s just a name on a lot of lists: the fourth or fifth name on a list of influences, never first, and all too often not mentioned at all where appropriate. He?s also an ex-convict, who was a sweet old man only while sober, which wasn?t often enough. But by looking at the people he influenced, you can see that Huddie Ledbetter, Leadbelly, was redeemable no matter what he did aside from making music. The self-proclaimed ?King of the Twelve-String Guitar? was more aptly the ?Godfather of the Twelve-String Gui-tar,? being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as an influence. He died poor and pitiful of a form of multiple sclerosis, and six months afterward his first hit song was a million-seller for another group. And every generation thereafter earned a new respect for a band that used one of his versions of a song.
The importance of Leadbelly lies not in his legendary evil ways; it was in his great talent for making popular music. To make note of his importance, it?s important to note his ?discoverer,? John Lomax. Lomax was on a constant search funded by the government to find its musical roots, rather to preserve what it could of them once the portable recording device was created. At the time Lomax met him, Ledbetter was serving a sen-tence at the Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana for murder, the second long stretch in prison for him. During his first run in prison, for assault in 1925 in Texas, he would play music for the guards to get lighter work-loads and eventually his music granted him an early release from the governor himself. It was in the Texas prison that Ledbetter allegedly earned his nickname, some say because he was able to eat anything, others said it was because he was ?the number one man in the number one gang in the Texas pen.? Lomax found him doing much the same in the Louisiana prison, singing for lighter work and trying hard for a second pardon from a harder governor. Lomax saw great potential in Ledbetter and helped get him parole in 1933 then hired him as a prot?g? of sorts. As much of a friend John Lomax was, he was also a hindrance, ex-ploiting Leadbelly as a singing prisoner, dressing him in convict or sharecropper clothes for photo sessions. He immortalized Leadbelly and at the same time made a joke of him. For as much as Leadbelly would agree to go along with the clothes, he refused to actually talk about prison or about the ear-to-ear scar on his neck.
The Term Paper on The Sociology of Music
Music sociology is said to be a very young discipline recently conceived in the academic circles. As the name would suggest, it is examining music from a sociological dimension which is considered more intricate than simply relating it to culture. Probably one of the earliest who ventured into this young discipline was Kurt Blaukopf when he published his work, Musik im Wandel der Gessellschaft ( ...
For all the influence he had, Leadbelly was not without his influences. Prior to his arrest in Texas, he played the street corners with his mentor, Blind Lemon Jefferson for change, and they brought in small fortunes together for five years, each man gaining a lot of influence from the other. In the mid-1930s he worked and lived with Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Woody Guthrie, each one giving and taking a bit. And John Lomax was indeed quite a benefit for Leadbelly as far as credit is concerned. Ledbetter had a repertoire of well over 500 songs, the actual number was never quantified. Upon his discovery by Lo-max, he was the first blues man to record for the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1933, while still in the Angola Prison Farm. Ledbetter himself couldn?t remember exactly which songs were his own as opposed to ones he made his own from someone else, and therefore his name is often attached to a lot of songs that perhaps weren?t originally his own. An example of this is popular children?s song of old, ?On Top of Old Smokey,? where Leadbelly is listed as a songwriter, as is Lomax, who had a tendency to accept credit whenever humanly possible. Without John Lomax, there would be no Leadbelly today.
The Essay on Compare And Contrast The Last Song
By combining a teenage summer romance with a sick parent, and you’ve got everything you need for a typical, but amazing Nicholas Sparks novel. Sadly, the movie doesn’t live up to the perfectly written story for shown in the book. The Last Song tells the story of a recent high school graduate, Ronnie, who leaves her home in New York City for North Carolina to spend the summer with the father she ...
For all of his ego, it should be noted that he deserves a lot of credit for all he?s done for modern music, I?ll even go so far as to say he deserves to be mentioned in mainstream history classes as a great historian. It was Lomax whose interest in folk music really cultivated it as much as he preserved it. When John Lomax took Leadbelly to New York in 1934 and put him on stage in any place that would accept him, he started a revolution. And to his credit, he looked the other way when Leadbelly would panhandle his audience for their change during intermissions. Lomax published a book of 48 Leadbelly songs, along with some race-related commentary in 1936, a mutual bene-fit for both men. Lomax was generally a patient friend to the sometimes outright evil Leadbelly through most of the 1930?s, but the friendship ended in the late thirties the night a drunken Ledbetter pulled a knife on John Lomax. In retrospect, Alan Lomax didn?t share his father?s idea of how legendary Leadbelly was, but he did make an effort to not sound bitter towards him, referring to him in his writings as naturally as he would his own father as a source for information and insight. Among the hundreds of recordings Ledbetter laid down for the Lomax?s cause, many were spirituals sang in prisons, a look at a life few would ever get to know.
Admittedly, most of the songs were not writ-ten by Ledbetter, but had his own special guitar work behind it ? enough to garner w writing credit for him-self and Lomax. Many of these songs go back to the days of slavery, and some are everyday prison worker songs, designed to pass time. Leadbelly had the voice and talent with a guitar to make these songs avail-able even to those that may never know what it?s really like to be in a true state of trouble. One song Leadbelly laid down for the Library of Congress? Archive of Folk Song was ?In New Or-leans,? his own spin on ?House of the Rising Sun,? written in 1928, ten years prior by Texas Alexander. The Ledbetter spin was that he changed the perspective from the female perspective to the male point-of-view. While Bob Dylan (no stranger to seeing his songs made famous by others) and several others have recorded the song in Alexander?s style, contemporarily credited to Dave Van Ronk, the song that the Ani-mals made their fortune on was lyric-for-lyric more of a match to Leadbelly?s version. The guitar accom-paniment to Leadbelly?s version was much more uptempo compared to most of the other versions, it actu-ally sounded like a song that comes out of New Orleans bar.
The Essay on Paul Meyers Song Blues Sound
The jazz band I observed played a series of six different songs. Although all the songs were categorized as jazz, each song had its own special style and sound to it. The band consisted of three different players. Paul Meyers, the guitarist and composer, Andy Eula u, the bassist, and Dave Rataczak, on drums. The songs performed were entitled "Love for Sale' by Cole Porter, "Once I Loved' by ...
Perhaps this came from the place itself, as Leadbelly spent some time playing on Fannin Street in New Orleans, and happened to catch an affliction from one of its ladies of ill repute. An interesting note to ?In New Orleans? is that both father and son Lo-max have a writing credit for the Leadbelly version, Leadbelly does not. On December 6, 1949, Leadbelly died in Bellevue Hospital in New York. Although he was very popular ? he had played in Europe earlier that year for the only time ? Ledbetter died broke. One of his colleagues in the folk scene, Pete Seeger, had formed The Weavers the year before. The Weavers earned fame from Leadbelly?s own ?Goodnight Irene? six months after Leadbelly passed on, making more money than Leadbelly would ever have seen. Ledbetter and Seeger knew each other from their political connec-tions, and often played together at rallies for assorted causes. Seeger always had a lot of respect for Led-better, and was quoted as wishing Leadbelly could have lived only a little longer to see success at last. Seeger, having made a fortune in 1950, tried his hand at a television career, and was found by Senator Joe McCarthy to be a communist. As a result, he was blacklisted until 1966 from any public display, and he never gained much success hence.
While he was alive, he was in an odd position where black people were more involved in newer sounds, and Ledbetter never had much impact on them. As a consequence, Leadbelly was technically con-sidered a bluesman with no influence on the blues, but he changed the face of folk music, which is as unique as it gets in music. But his music reached quite a strange range. Among his two most bizarre cov-ers of his songs was Lonnie Donegan?s 1956 cover of ?Rock Island Line.? It was bizarre because Lonnie Donnegan played skiffle, which is a British version of what the hillbillies of America would play. The other bizarre hit cover of a Leadbelly song about a whip was ?Black Betty,? as done in 1977 by Ram Jam. These guys were something of a hybrid of bubble gum pop ? like the Monkees ? and heavy metal ? like Led Zeppelin. ?Black Betty? was a bit of a radio hit, the closest this band ever came to notoriety. In 1970, Leadbelly was paid homage to again for one of his angriest compositions when Credence Clearwater Revival covered ?The Midnight Special? on their album, Willie and the Poor Boys. This song was written while Ledbetter was in the Texas pen in the early 1920s. The Midnight Special was a train that rode the tracks on the other side of the prison?s wall.
The Term Paper on Chuck Berry Music Elvis Sound
These are my rough unedited class notes representing general ideas and concepts for class lectures. Please ignore the many sentence fragments. The African-American culture of the southern plantation influenced the birth of the blues through the adaptation of their African musical heritage. Based upon a call and response structure, one slave worker would call or play a lead and the fellow workers ...
If it?s lights shined upon you, you were on the open side of the wall, the free side. In spite of his reluctance to ever talk about the time he spent in jails and prisons, he wrote several songs while inside, and this one may have been the best of them. Also on Willie and the Poor Boys is CCR?s cover of Leadbelly?s ?Cotton Fields,? which wasn?t nearly as popular, but was critically applauded. Ironically, John Fogerty would break with his band bitterly in a label dispute and would refuse to play ?his [Fogerty?s] songs? because it would mean paying royalties to a label he was dis-gusted by ? both ?Cotton Fields? and ?The Midnight Special? were included in his list of not-to-play songs. In the 1990s, two very different guitar legends covered Leadbelly in the same manner: on MTV?s Un-plugged program. In 1992, Eric Clapton, arguably one of the greatest guitar players of all time, covered ?Alberta? on his 1992 set. This song was done quite a bit in his concerts of the early eighties, but when laid down for the Unplugged session, he really nailed it perfectly, according to many critics. Two years later, in 1994, Nirvana played a session for Unplugged in New York, a city that Leadbelly rose to promi-nence in.
The set-closer of this final recorded show was ?Where Did You Sleep Last Night,? a moving song about a man who?s asking his wife where she was the night before. Kurt Cobain, the frontman for the band, made a joke prior to starting the song about how he was recently propositioned Leadbelly?s guitar for $200,000 and how his label?s president/owner, David Geffin, wouldn?t buy it for him. The irony was that Leadbelly himself could never make that much money for one of his guitars. Cobain and a cellist per-formed most of the song, and it sounded much less hokey than Leadbelly?s original. The large difference is in how Leadbelly managed to sound convincing in his hidden threat that if the woman were out with an-other man he would certainly kill him. Cobain didn?t sound threatening, rather he sounded sad, almost dis-appointed.
The Term Paper on Blues Music As A Vivid Reflection Of The Black American Life And Culture
Blues Music As A Vivid Reflection of The Black American Life And Culture Blues can be justly called the Black-American music. It reflects the history and culture of the blacks in America from the times when they were slaves till the present days. Translating the emotion into music, blues performers cry, hum, moan, plead, rasp, shout, and howl lyrics and wordless sounds while creating instrumental ...
Any album put out by Beck or the great Van Morrison has a little bit of Leadbelly in it. Pearl Jam?s bigger fans tend to say that their tribute song to him, ?Yellow Ledbetter? is some of their best work. The young blues musician Kenny Wayne Shepherd?s first album, Ledbetter Heights, has the sound of Huddie Ledbetter throughout its length. Led Zeppelin?s blues songs all drew upon the patented Ledbetter folk-blues sound. Leadbelly?s brand of twelve-string playing may not influence many more artists on its own merit, but judging from the list of names he has influenced, it is evident that his influence will live through another generation indirectly. Every band that borrows a sound from Beck, Van Morrison, Led Zeppelin, or Credence Clearwater Revival will be likely to have a little bit of Leadbelly?s sound if only just a hint of it. I would say that Leadbelly should be listed alongside the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan as the most influential musicians in Rock and Roll.
Bibliography:
Encyclopedia of Black America. ?1981, McGraw-Hill. Page 502 Cantwell, Robert, When We Were Good, the Fold Revival. ?1996, Harvard. Pages 7, 8, 73-75, 81, 179, 180, 275 Erliwine, Bogdanov, Woodstra, and Koda, All Music Guide To the Blues. ?1996, Miller Freeman Books. Pages 128, 159-161, 301, 305, 307 Kingman, Daniel, American Music: A Panorama, 2nd Edition ?1990, Schirmer Books. Pages 88-89, 101, 206 Lomax, Alan The Land Where Blues Began. ?1993, Pantheon Mentions throughout Lovell, John Jr., Black Song, the Forge & the Flame. ?1972, MacMillan. Pages 469, 506 Palmer, Tony, All You Need Is Love: the Story of Popular Music. ?1976, Gossman. Pages 183, 196, 207, 296 Paraire, Philippe, Fifty Years of Rock Music. ?1992, W&R Chambers. Pages 12, 14, 30, 37, 74 Southern, Eileen, The Music if Black Americans, 2nd Edition. ?1983, W.W. Norton & Co. Pages 495-496 Stambler, Irwin, Encyclopedia of Folk, Country, and Western Music. ?1983, St. Martin?s Press. Pages 388-391 Also: -This paper could not have been completed without the following: Leadbelly, Goodnight Irene. ?1996, Tradition. It had the details of ?In New Orleans,? in its liner notes, and a wailing version of Leroy Carr?s blues staple, ?How Long Blues.? The study guides from this class offered a lot of direction as to which artists to look to, including Lonnie Donnagan and a little bit on ?The House of the Rising Sun.? My small collection of albums (A little more than 250 albums), including Nirvana?s Unplugged In New York, Clapton?s Unplugged, Pearl Jam?s ?Jeremy? single, some Leadbelly, and a lot of Hen-drix. I looked and looked, but didn?t find much Leadbelly in Hendrix, but I will say that they both seemed to be more profoundly effective on white people than black in their day.
The Essay on Rock And Roll Music Alan Black
The Way It Really Was! In the 1950's there were many problems. The Korean war and the civil rights struggle. Back then the music was all rhythm and blues (r &b). It was record mostly by black artists and for black audience but the white teenagers became interested. The music scene in the early 50's Before 1954 there were 3 distinct music areas. R & B, country and pop. Music stations ...
