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You don't have the spooky vibrato of someone like Bukka White, no amazing guitar work like Robert Johnson (to me Leadbelly is actually a mediocre guitarist), no country bounce like Mississippi John Hurt. Boring. And THAT is every Leadbelly song, folks. Whoa, did he just say that.
Yes people, BORING.Let me add a little to that. His legend has always been helped by the facts of his life - serving prison terms several times, being discovered by Alan Lomax, getting a pardon from writing a song for the warden. While the story of Leadbelly is very interesting, I don't think the music is. So, if you want a well-rounded early blues collection, get a Leadbelly CD then. Like so many of my generation, I first heard of Leadbelly through Nirvana's harrowing cover of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." That put his name in my head, but it was quite a few years until I actually got a Leadbelly CD. I had ended up exploring a lot of other early bluesmen before I got around to Leadbelly. I'm not some neophyte who has one Leadbelly CD and decided all the music was horrible. Next, in an almost impenetrable patoise, start saying how the person did "this," and then did "this," and then did "that," and cap it all off with the shout "you know what he said to him/her." And then sing the chorus in a completely indecipherable mumble.
Let me lay it out for you -First off, start out with some general "chugga chugga" chords - I swear the chords hardly vary between different songs. It is really damned monotonous.Now, is it Leadbelly's fault he doesn't sound like other people. But honestly, you really don't need more than one. But he has always been accorded this legendary status like he's the fount from which all blues flows, and that's not the case. I have the 1990 "Leadbelly" CD, "King of the 12 String Guitar," and "Gwine Dig a Hole to Put the Devil In." And after giving all three of them a lot of chances over the years, I've come to my earlier conclusion. No.
And that's good, because I've actually found Leadbelly to be horribly repetitive and boring. His voice never changes from this cycle. If ever the claim could be made that someone's songs all sound the same, it applies to Leadbelly. Not Leadbelly, someone who's been revered by blues fans and folkies for over 50 years now. It's a bit of a crime that Leadbelly has more releases than almost any other early bluesman.
I'll get ATB now, even if Last Sessions has the clearest audio experience, but whose version of In New Orleans had traded its original bounce for the dirge qualities of the modern version.ps- if you want a galloping, if wholly unlike the original, interp of the modern version, listen to Tracy Chapman's go in the Elektra 40th anniversary Rubaiyat collection. An evaluation of reviews compelled me to choose this cd over Absolutely The Best (my introduction to Leadbetter, the audio quality ok), though, I should have put more of a premium on sound.
otherwise you just don't know what you're missing. then you're off to a good start. buy this. buy the robert johnson and hank williams complete recordings as well. country blues, to me, is the direct predecessor to rock music, and it's some of the purest, most enjoyable music out there. don't hesitate. it's necessary for you to own it and know it.
This is NOT the song made famous by the Animals, although some of the lines are similar. Born Huddie Leadbetter, this singer was better known as Leadbelly. But Leadbelly was the first rural African-American musician to receive media exposure." This statement is perhaps overstated a bit. But it does provide a nice entree into his body of work.
He begins with "Jimmy cracks corn and I don't care; Martha's gone away." A strange little song. It's pretty loosely sung with an improvisational feel to it.This doesn't represent all of his best pieces, as some others have noted. This presents an interesting contrast to some of the songs dealing with darker issues (e.g., "The Bourgeois Blues").Finally, "Blue Tail Fly." Vocal only, no instrumentation. A golden oldie.
One might also note that Pete Seeger spoke highly of him.A look at a handful of the cuts here can provide a sense of his work.One of my favorites is "The Bourgeois Blues." He has a rough, unpolished voice; his guitar playing is spare but effective. It is a tale of returning home to New Orleans, "'cuz my race is almost run.""Goodnight Irene" is one of his best known works. The liner notes clarify his role in music history: "It would be foolish to try and rank Leadbelly as an influential force on today's modern blues practice.[N]either his style of playing or singing is germane to how we do business on the bandstand these days. The song has a hypnotic feel.
One nice line:"Home of the brave, land of the free,I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgeoisie."Then, there is "In New Orleans (House of the Rising Sun)." An intriguing song. However, Leadbelly's almost primitive art (between vocals and guitar work) is still pretty compelling. He sings of his bourgeois blues, facing racism.
If you're willing to shell out a bit more, then get this album along with Lead Belly Sings for Children, also available on Amazon. My suggestion. The latter contains the aformentioned "Midnight Special," as well as a number of wonderful children's songs, spirituals and medleys. This single-disc compilation makes a pretty good introduction to the legendary folk/ blues musician, Lead Belly. The sound quality is good and comparable to the more recent collection Absolutely the Best, and this CD contains many of the same standards as that album, including "The Bourgeois Blues," "In New Orleans," "Goodnight Irene" and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," as well as additional classics such as "Yellow Gal," "Blue Tail Fly" and "The Boll Weevil Song." The only thing stopping this collection from being indisputably more definitive than Absolutely the Best is the unfortunate absence of "Midnight Special," a song famously covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival in the late 1960s, and probably one of Huddie's four or five most popular songs.
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