Leadbelly

A key figure in the history of American music, Huddie Ledbetter was one of the great voices of the folk tradition, telling stories of cotton picking, slavery and the travails of the South and leaving a lasting influence on the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Kurt Cobain. Born on a plantation in Louisiana in 1888, he was taught guitar and accordion by his uncle at an early age, but became a social outcast when he fathered two children by the time he was 16 and set out on his own as a wandering minstrel and farm hand. Bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson became a travelling partner and huge influence, but Ledbetter found himself imprisoned in Houston, Texas after killing one of his relatives in a fight over a woman. He was pardoned and released in 1925 - supposedly because Governor Pat Morris was entranced by his powerful musical talent - but was again incarcerated after stabbing a white man. It was in the notorious Angola Prison Farm, Louisiana that he earned the nickname Lead Belly after surviving several attacks, before being discovered by folklorist John Lomax, who recorded him for the Library of Congress and organised his release in 1934. His fierce temper and wild drinking led to a bitter falling out with Lomax but, after another stint in jail, he was cared for by Lomax's son Alan (himself an important folklorist) and became the toast of the New York leftist folk movement, playing alongside the likes of Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee throughout the 1940s. His signature songs Goodnight Irene, Midnight Special, Pick A Bale Of Cotton and Rock Island Line became great standards of the folk movement and led to him becoming one of the first black American acts to tour Europe. He died from Lou Gehrig's disease in 1949, but his music went on to have a huge influence during the 1960s folk boom, skiffle and early rock'n'roll.