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LEAD BELLY

Cotton-picker, blues pioneer, womaniser, convicted murderer, forefather of rock’n’roll…

Lead Belly was born Huddie Ledbetter in 1885 in Mooringsport, Louisiana, close to Caddo lake, a tranquil spot far removed from the bright city lights of Shreveport, the nearest big town. His parents were farmers, and by all accounts Huddie was a tough kid who was able to pick more cotton than anyone else.

He quickly came to like women, corn liquor and trouble in about equal proportions. He liked hanging out in Shreveport’s red-light area, and by the age of 16 he had not only gained an enviable reputation for his sexual prowess, but also heard the barrel-house piano players whose ‘walking bass’ figures would later become a trademark of his own powerful rhythmic style.

By the age of 33, Lead Belly had mastered the 12-string guitar, met up with Blind Lemon Jefferson and was becoming a regular performer at dances and fish fries in the region. But he soon ran into serious trouble. After an assault conviction, he spent a year on the chain gang, from which he escaped. He subsequently adopted the name Walter Boyd.

At about the same time that the USA entered the First World War, Walter Boyd was with two friends on his way to a dance. After an altercation about a girl, one of the men drew a pistol, but before he could use it Boyd shot him in the head. Six months later, in 1918, he was sent to Shaw State Prison with a 30-year sentence.

In a remarkable streak of luck (something that seemed to characterise his whole life), after serving only seven years, Boyd — who by now had the nickname Lead Belly — charmed his way out of prison by making up a song about the prison governor, Pat Neff.

But Lead Belly’s temper soon got the better of him again, and by