Huddey "Leadbelly" Ledbetter (FINNISH)

                   

Leadbelly laulamassa vaimolleen Martha Promiselle.

ALKUVAIHEET LOUISIANASSA

Huddie William Ledbetter syntyi Jeter Plantaasilla Mooringsportissa, Louisianassa mutta varttui Leighissä, Texasissa, jonne perhe muutti hänen ollessaan viiden vanha. Hänen syntymäpäiväkseen on ilmoitettu 29.1.1885 tai 21.1.1888. Hautakiveen on kuitenkin merkitty vuosi 1889.

Ainoana lapsena hän sai osakseen kaiken rakkauden ja huomion Wes ja Sally Ledbetteriltä. Ledbetterit olivat melko hyvin toimeen tulevia etelän mustia, jotka olivat nousseet vuokraviljelijöistä Louisianassa maanomistajiksi Texas-Louisiana rajalla. Leadbellyn äiti, Sally Pugho, oli puoliksi intiaani.

Leadbelly'n setä, Terrel Ledbetter, opetti veljenpoikaansa soittamaan huuliharppua ja kitaraa. Leadbelly esiintyi pian paikallisissa juhlissa sekä vastoin äitinsä protesteja myös Shreveportin Fannin Streetillä, tunnetulla punaisten lyhtyjen alueella. Vuoteen 1903 mennessä Lead Belly oli jo jonkin tasoinen muusikko ja laulaja.

Leadbelly aiheutti skandaalin tullessaan isäksi 15 ikäisenä ja toisen kerran 16 vuotiaana. Vastauksena raivostuneen yhteisön reaktioon, hän jätti lapsuudenkotinsa työskennellen apulaisena ja renkinä farmeilla. Yhdessä vaiheessa hän kuitenkin sairastui vakavasti ja palasi kotiinsa Mooringsportiin. Tänä ajanjaksona hän tapasi ensimmäisen vaimonsa, Lethen.

Leadbelly vakuutteli myöhemmin maanneensa 8 - 10 naisen kanssa joka yö ja kierteli noihin aikoihin Dallasin ympäristössä bluesmies Blind Lemon Jeffersonin kanssa. Sokealla Jeffersonilla, joka tuli myöhemmin 1920-luvulla myymään miljoona levyä, oli suuri vaikutus Leadbellyyn, joka osoitti tämän tekemällä laulun "(My Friend) Blind Lemon" - "(Ystäväni) Sokea Lemon".

ONGELMAT ALKAVAT

Lead Bellyn äkkipikainen luonne johti usein ongelmiin lain kanssa. Vuonna 1915 hänet tuomittiin "pistoolin kantamisesta" ja lähetettiin Harrison County chain gangiin. Vaikka Lead-bellyn vanhemmat möivät maansa maksaakseen pojalleen hyvän asianajajan, Leadbelly tuomittiin pakkotyöhön. Hänen onnistui kuitenkin paeta ja selvitä suuresta takaa-ajosta juoksemalla koiria ja miehiä karkuun läpi metsien ja soiden.

Hakeuduttuaan vanhempiensa farmille piilopaikkaa etsiessään, isä lähetti hänet New Orleansiin mutta hän ei pitänyt kaupungista ja muutti Texasin De Kalbiin, osavaltion koillisosaan lähelle Arkansasia. Toivoen välttävänsä pidätyksen hän elätti itseään farmiapulaisena ja sukulaiset auttoivat häntä. Tänä aikana Leadbelly ei juurikaan musisoinut ettei kiinnittäisi itseensä huomiota. Hän alkoi myös käyttää salanimeä Walter Boyd. Hän ja Lethe eivät enää olleet yhdessä ja Leadbelly löysi muita naisia pitämään itselleen seuraa.

TUOMIO MURHASTA

Walter Boydina hän tuli tunnetuksi siitä että oli jatkuvasti naisissa tai tappelemassa. Matkustaessaan ystäviensä ja sukulaismiehen Will Staffordin seurassa, Leadbelly joutui naisen takia tappeluun jossa hän ampui Staffordia kuolettavasti. Tammikuussa 1918 hänet lopulta vangittiin ja vaikka Leadbelly vakuutteli loppuun asti syyttömyyttään, hänet tuomittiin murhasta 30 vuodeksi pakkotyöhön Texasin Shaw State "Farmille".

Käyttäen yhä nimeä Boyd, Leadbelly istui seitsemän vuotta 30-vuotisesta tuomiostaan. Vankilapaon epäonnistuttua hän yritti hukuttautua jokeen mutta hänet vedettiin väkisin rantaan. Palattuaan vankilaan hän alkoi käyttää musikaalisia lahjojaan päästäkseen vartijoiden suosioon. Kun Leadbelly kärsi tuomiotaan Shaw State Farmilla, hänen isänsä kuoli. Juuri ennen kuolemaansa, Wes Ledbetter oli yrittänyt lahjoa vankilanjohtajaa vapauttamaan hänen poikansa.

Kuitenkin vuonna 1925, Leadbelly sai keinoteltua itselleen armahduksen. Hänet vapautettiin seitsemän vuoden vankilassa olon jälkeen, mikä oli itse asiassa se vähimmäisaika joka hänen oli pakko tuomiostaan lusia. Hän teki vapautensa puolesta niin vetoavan laulun kuvernööri Pat Morris Neffille käyttäen hyväksi Neffin lujaa uskonnollista vakaumusta että tämä päätti vapauttaa Leadbellyn. Asiaan vaikutti myös hyvä käytös ja vartijoiden kertomukset miehestä joka oli vuosien ajan viihdyttänyt heitä ja muita vankeja musiikillaan.

Vapauduttuaan hän palasi Mooringsportiin. Leadbelly Elätti itsensä kuorma-auton kuljettajana ja hankki itselleen naisia ja viskiä musiikkinsa avulla. Näihin aikoihin Blind Lemon Jeffersonin levyt möivät hyvin ja country blues oli suosionsa huipulla. Mutta levy-yhtiöiden kykyjenetsijät eivät kiinnittäneet huomiota Leadbellyyn.

 

TAKAISIN LINNAAN

Eräänä yönä esittäessään laulua "Mister Tom Hughes's Town," Leadbelly joutui tappeluun josta hänelle jäi muistoksi hirvittävä arpi kaulaan ja toinen osapuoli sai pysyvän aivovaurion. Lisää käsirysyjä seurasi ja Leadbelly oli taas jatkuvasti ongelmissa lain kanssa.

Kahinan jälkeen jossa hänen kertomansa mukaan kuusi miestä oli yrittänyt viedä häneltä viskipullon, Leadbelly tuomittiin pahoinpitelystä ja tapon yrityksestä. Pöytäkirjat kuitenkin osoittavat tuomion tulleen siitä että hän oli hyökännyt veitsen kanssa valkoisen pelastusarmeijan upseerin kimppuun kun tämä oli kieltänyt Leadbellyä tanssimasta pelastusarmeijan järjestämässä konsertissa.

Vuonna 1930, Leadbelly tuomittiin kymmeneksi vuodeksi Louisianan lääninvankilaan eli kuuluisaan Angolan vankilaan. Kun tuomion syy selvisi vankilanjohtajalle, häneltä riistettiin kaikki mahdollisuudet aikaisemmasta vapautuksesta. Elämä lama-aikana etelävaltojen vankiloissa ei ollut helppoa ja Leadbelly sai muiden vankien lailla osakseen hirvittävää väkivaltaa ja kohtelua. Hän kuitenkin sopeutui Angolan kurjiin oloihin ja ajan myötä pääsi työskentelemään vankilan pesutuvalle ja keittiöön. Tämän tuomionsa aikana hän alkoi nukkua sellissään valo päällä. Ilmeisesti pieni valonkajo pimeässä sellissä toi hänelle jonkinlaista lohtua kurjuuteen.

TUTUSTUMINEN LOMAXIIN

Vuonna 1933, Harvardin käynyt Amerikkalaisen folk musiikin asiantuntija, John Lomax, kierteli etelävaltioiden vankiloita nauhoittaen vankien musisointia ja saapuessaan Angolaan hän kuuli Leadbellyn laulavan. Lomax nauhoitti monia Leadbellyn lauluja ja palasi muutamaa kuukautta myöhemmin paremman äänityslaitteiston kanssa. Leadbelly nauhoitti "Please Pardon Me" laulunsa joka oli nyt omistettu Louisianan kuvernöörille sekä "Goodnight Irenen." Leadbelly väitti myöhemmin vapautuneensa koska kuvernööri oli liikuttunut kuultuaan laulun mutta asiakirjoista selviää vapautumisen syyn olleen "taloudellinen".

Kun Leadbelly vapautettiin Angolasta vuonna 1934, työpaikat olivat tiukassa, varsinkin entisille vangeille. Lomax kuitenkin palkkasi hänet studioapulaiseksi ja otti tämän mukaansa New Yorkiin, missä Lomax oli tunnettu varakkaissa piireissä jotka olivat tykästyneet folk musiikkiin. Leadbelly saapui New Yorkiin 31.12.1934, ja aiheutti pian sensaation fyysisellä olemuksellaan ja vankilataustallaan. Hänen musikaaliset kykynsä 12-kielisellä kitaralla tulivat sukupolvien takaa ja tyyli oli aijemmin täysin vieras New Yorkin asukkaille.

Häntä pyydettiin esiintymään eliitti-yliopistoilla, joissa hän yhtä paljon pelotti kuin viehätti kuulijoitaan. Lomax neuvotteli sopimuksen Macmillanin kanssa kirjoittaakseen kirjan "Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly"joka tulisi sisältämään Leadbellyn elämänkerran, tarinan siitä miten Lomax löysi hänet sekä taustatarinoita Leadbellyn esittämille lauluille.

Leadbelly muutti asumaan talooon Connecticutissa jonka omisti eräs seurapiiri julkimo saaden näin omaa rauhaa lehdistöltä ja Lomax työskenteli kirjansa parissa. Leadbelly tutustui Louisianalaiseen Martha Promiseen ja he avioituivat Connecticutin Wiltonissa, seremoniassa joka oli hyvin julkinen.

Oleskellessaan Connecticutissa, Leadbelly levytti musiikkiaan "Library of Congress archivesille".  Lomax järjesti hänelle levytyksiä myös American Record Company levy-yhtiön kanssa. Vaikkakin American julkaisi joitakin hänen levyjään kaupallisesti ne möivät huonosti koska bluessin ja folkin suosio oli alkanut hiipumaan kymmenkunta vuotta aikaisemmin.

Mutta varsinainen ongelma oli siinä että levy-yhtiöt vaativat Leadbellyä esittämään bluessia vaikka tämän varsinaiseen repertuaariin genre ei kuulunutkaan. Lopputuloksena, Leadbelly ei koskaan myynyt paljon levyjä elossa ollessaan, vaikka todella suuri yleisö oli kiinnostunut hänen folk musiikistaan.

RIITAANTUMINEN LOMAXIN KANSSA

Vaikka Leadbellyn ja Lomaxin keskinäiset välit olivatkin hyvät, ajan myötä he riitaantuivat. Niin pitkään kuin Huddy pysyi poissa vaikeuksista ja esiintyi Lomaxin järjestämissä tilaisuuksissa kaikki oli hyvin. Lomax hoiti hänen raha-asiansa mikä oli paras keino pitää Leadbelly "lyhyellä hihnalla" ja hillitä tämän tulista luonnetta.

Leadbelly alkoi torjua Lomaxin sopimia tilaisuuksia tutustuttuaan New Yorkin mustaan yöelämään. Miehen väkivaltainen menneisyys ja se että hän oli kuin helposti syttyvää ruutia antoi Lomaxille enemmän kuin tarpeeksi syytä pelätä löytämäänsä Leadbellyä. Miesten väliset kiistat ja jatkuva konserttien unohtaminen johti heidän yhteistyönsä loppumiseen maaliskuussa 1935.

Leadbelly palasi Louisianaan ja Lomax puolestaan Texasiin työskennelläkseen kirjansa parissa joka oli jäänyt aikataulusta jälkeen. Rahattomana Huddy yritti asianajana avulla vaatia rahaa Lomaxilta koska tämä kirjoitti kirjaa Leadbellystä. He pääsivät sopimukseen ja kirja valmistui marraskuussa 1936.

VASEMMISTOLAISET YSTÄVÄT

Maaliskuussa 1936, vuosi sen jälkeen kun hän oli jättänyt New Yorkin, Leadbelly oli palannut yhteen vaimonsa Marthan kanssa. Ilman Lomaxia, Leadbelly joutui sinnittelemään taloudellisessa ahdingossa mutta tavattuaan New Yorkin yliopiston lehtori Mary Barniclen, häntä alettiin kutsumaan kaupungin vasemmistolaisten järjestämiin tapahtumiin, joissa väki oli hyvin kiinnostunut Leadbellyn folk musiikista .

sosiaalituen ja epämääräisten töiden avulla eläen, Leadbelly vaimoineen sinnitteli pitääkseen yllä siedettävää elintasoa. Lomaxin kirja ei myynyt hyvin. Jazz ja swing hallitsi nyt markkinoita ja Leadbellyn yleisö koostui enää lähinnä politiikasta kiinnostuneista vasemmistolaisista. Houkutellakseen laajempaa kuulijakuntaa hän teki lauluja tasa-arvosta ja rotuerottelusta. Hän levytti myös ei-kaupallisia tallenteita jotka päätyivät Itä-Tennesseen yliopiston arkistoihin. Tekipä hän vielä lastenlaulu albuminkin.

VANKILA KUTSUU JÄLLEEN

Vuonna 1939, Leadbelly pidätettiin tämän pahoinpideltyä miehen veitsellä. Raportin mukaan hän oli puukottanut uhriaan 16 kertaa. Tästä pahoinpitelystä hänet tuomittiin alle vuodeksi vankilaan. Oikeudenkäyntien aikana hän levytti ensimmäistä kertaa kaupallisesti sitten vuoden 1935 Musicraftille, vasemmistolaismieliselle pienelle levy-yhtiölle. Hän sai tästä jonkin verran royalteja.

51 vuoden ikäinen Leadbelly alkoi istumaan neljättä tuomiotaan vuonna 1939. Vuoteen 1940 mennessä, suoritettuaan tuomiostaan 8 kuukautta, hänet vapautettiin ja tämä palasi New Yorkiin. Näihin aikoihin folk musiikki oli tulossa jälleen suosituksi ja tämä suosio jatkoi kasvuaan ennnen ja jälkeen toisen maailmansodan.

VIIMEISET VUODET

Leadbelly ystävystyi tuolloin vielä tuntemattoman Woody Guthrien kanssa ja kutsui hänet asumaan kotiinsa jossa hän asui vaimonsa Marthan kanssa. Leadbellyn asunnosta tuli pian suosittu kokoontumispaikka folk musiikista kiinnostuneille ja soittosessiot jatkuivat usein läpi yön aina aamuun asti. Leadbelly esiintyi radiossa ja teki levytyksiö RCA:lle sekä "Library of Congressille". Hän levytti myös Moe Asch's Folkway Recordsille, josta tuli hänen pääasiallinen levy-yhtiönsä.

Vuonna 1944, Leadbelly suuntasi Hollywoodiin siinä toivossa että pääsisi näyttelemään elokuviin. Vaikka tämä yritys epäonnistui hän niitti mainetta esiintymällä paikallisilla klubeilla. Hän levytti Capitol recordsille jolla oli tähän astisista levy-yhtiöistä kaikkein kehittynein studio. Mutta vuoteen 1946 mennessä hän oli saanut tarpeekseen Californiasta ja palasi New Yorkiin. Folk musiikin suosio jatkoi koko ajan kasvuaan ja Leadbelly huomasi itsekin hänen kuulijakuntansa laajenevan jatkuvalla syötöllä.

Vuonna 1946 julkaistiin Englannissa kirja nimeltä "A Tribute of Huddie Ledbetter". Leadbelly tuli mainiosti toimeen esiintymällä jazz-klubeilla ja satunnaisissa konserteissa.

Vuonna 1949, lyhyen Ranskankiertueen aikana, hänelle diagnosoitiin Lou Gehrigin tauti. Hän kuoli New Yorkissa puoli vuotta myöhemmin, 6.12.1949. Hänet haudattiin Shiloh Baptisti kirkon hautausmaalle lähelle Mooringsportia, Louisianassa.

Henry Robinson & Dan Garner kunnioittavat 

Leadbellyn muistoa musisoimalla tämän haudalla.

 

Leadbellyn hautakivi.

Huddey "Leadbelly" Ledbetter (ENGLISH)

 Leadbelly singing for his wife, Martha

LOUISIANA BEGINNINGS

Huddie William Ledbetter was born on Jeter Plantation in Mooringsport, Louisiana but raised in Leigh, Texas where the family moved when he was five. His date of birth has been  given as January 29, 1885 or January 21, 1888. But on his gravestone is the year 1889 so we go with that.

As an only child, he enjoyed the doting affection of his parents, Wes and Sally Ledbetter. The Ledbetters were fairly well-to-do Southern blacks, having risen from sharecroppers in Louisiana to landowners on the Texas-Louisiana border. Leadbelly's mother, born Sally Pugho, was half Indian.

Leadbelly's uncle, Terrel Ledbetter, taught his nephew to play accordion and guitar. Leadbelly was soon playing at local parties—as well as on Shreveport's Fannin Street, a notorious red-light district, despite his mother's protests. By 1903, Lead Belly was already a 'musicaner', a singer and guitarist of some note.

Leadbelly caused a scandal when he fathered a child at the age of 15 and a second child at 16.  In reaction to the community's outrage, he set out on his own, supporting himself as a wandering minstrel and farm laborer. At one point, however, he became extremely sick and returned home to Mooringsport. It was during this period that he met his first wife, Lethe.

Leadbelly later claimed that as a youth he would "make it" with 8 to 10 women a night and that he wandered around Dallas with blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson about this time.  Jefferson, who went on to sell a million records during the 1920s, had a profound influence on Leadbelly, who would later acknowledge his debt to the younger musician in a song entitled "(My Friend) Blind Lemon."

JAILED FOR ASSAULT

Lead Belly's volatile temper sometimes led him into trouble with the law. In 1915 he was convicted "of carrying a pistol" and sentenced to do time on the Harrison County chain gang, Although Lead-belly's parents sold their land to pay for his legal defense, Leadbelly was sentenced to short-term hard labor. He escaped from the penitentiary by outrunning the prison dogs.

After seeking refuge at his parents' farm, he was sent by his father to New Orleans, But he disliked that city and moved on to De Kalb, Texas, in the northeastern part of the state near Arkansas. Hoping to avoid recapture, he supported himself as a farm laborer while relatives helped him. During this period, Leadbelly played little music to avoid drawing attention to himself. He also adopted the alias Walter Boyd. He and Lethe were no longer together, and Leadbelly found other women to keep him company.

CONVICTED OF MURDER

As Walter Boyd, Leadbelly became known for the company he kept with women and for frequent fights. While traveling with friends and a relative named Will Stafford, Leadbelly got into a fight over a woman in which Stafford was fatally shot. In January 1918 he was imprisoned a second time, Though Leadbelly maintained his innocence, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years of hard labor on Shaw State Farm in Texas.

Still using the name Boyd, Leadbelly served seven years of his 30-year sentence working on chain gangs. After a prison escape failed, he tried to drown himself in a lake but was apprehended. Back in prison, he used his musical talents to gain favor with the prison guards. While Leadbelly was serving time at Shaw State Farm, his father died. Just before his death, Wes Ledbetter had tried to bribe prison officials into releasing Leadbelly.

But in 1925, Leadbelly won a full pardon on his own. he was pardoned and released, having served seven years, or virtually all of the minimum of his seven-to-35-year sentence, after writing a song appealing to Governor Pat Morris Neff for his freedom. Lead Belly had swayed Neff by appealing to his strong religious beliefs. That, in combination with good behavior (including entertaining by playing for the guards and fellow prisoners), was Lead Belly's ticket out of jail.

Oddly, the pardon came after the governor of Texas went on record as opposing pardons. The governor had visited the prison several times to hear Leadbelly sing, and Leadbelly later maintained that he won over the governor with his song "Please Pardon Me."

Following his release from prison, Leadbelly returned home to Mooringsport. While supporting himself as a truck driver, he kept himself in liquor and women by using his musical talents. By this time, Blind Lemon Jefferson's records were selling well and country blues was at the peak of its popularity. But record scouts took no notice of Leadbelly.

ANOTHER PRISON SENTENCE

One night while performing a song titled "Mister Tom Hughes's Town," Leadbelly became involved in a brawl that left him with a horrendous scar on his neck and left the other man with permanent brain injuries. Other fights would follow, leading Leadbelly into further conflicts with the law.


After a fight in which he claimed that six men tried to steal whiskey from his lunch pail, Leadbelly was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder. Court records, however, show that he was convicted of assaulting a white Salvation Army officer with a knife at a Salvation Army concert after the officer told Leadbelly to stop dancing to the music.


In 1930, Leadbelly was sentenced to ten years at the Louisiana state prison in Angola. After the authorities discovered Leadbelly's prior conviction, he was disqualified from any chance at early release. Life in Depression-era Southern prisons was not easy, and Leadbelly received beatings for minor offenses. But he adapted to the conditions at Angola and eventually was allowed to work as a laundry man and waiter. During this prison term, he acquired the habit of sleeping with the lights on.

DISCOVERED

In 1933, a Harvard-trained expert on American folk music, John Lomax, was making his way through Southern prisons and recording musicians when he stopped at Angola and heard Leadbelly sing. Lomax made some preliminary recordings of Leadbelly's songs and returned months later with better recording equipment. Leadbelly recorded his "Please Pardon Me" song wich was now addressed to the governor of Louisiana and "Goodnight Irene." Leadbelly later maintained that he was pardoned because the Louisiana governor had been so moved by his prison song, but records indicate that he was released as a cost-saving measure.

When Leadbelly was released from Angola in 1934, jobs were scarce, especially for ex-convicts. . But Lomax hired him as a recording assistant and took him to New York, where Lomax was well connected with wealthy people who were very interested about folk music. Leadbelly arrived in New York on December 31, 1934, and quickly created a sensation with his physical scars and prison background. His musical tradition on the 12-string guitar went back decades to roots unfamiliar in New York.

He was asked to perform at elite universities, where he frightened as much as entertained his audiences. Lomax negotiated a contract with Macmillan to write a book entitled Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly that would include Leadbelly's life history, an account of his discovery by Lomax, and background details about Lead-belly's songs.

Leadbelly moved into a house in Connecticut owned by a socialite to give himself some breathing room from the publicity seekers in New York and to work with Lomax on the book. Meanwhile, the guitar player sent to Louisiana for his latest companion, Martha Promise. They were married in Wilton, Connecticut, in a highly publicized ceremony.

While in Connecticut, Leadbelly recorded songs for the Library of Congress archives.  Lomax also made arrangements for Leadbelly to record under the label of the American Record Company. Although American released some of Leadbelly's recordings commercially, they sold poorly, the peak market for rural blues having passed some ten years earlier.

But part of the problem was that the company insisted Leadbelly record blues rather than folk songs, even though most of his repertoire was folk music. As a result, Leadbelly never did sell many records while he was alive, even though there was a large interest among white audiences in his folk music.

RELATIONSHIP WITH LOMAX SOURED

Although the relationship between Lomax and Lead-belly was at first mutually satisfactory, it gradually deteriorated. As long as Leadbelly stayed out of trouble and performed for Lomax's audiences, things went well enough. With Lomax contracted to handle Leadbelly's finances, the folk singer was totally dependent on income from Lomax and Lomax kept Leadbelly on a tight leash to prevent him from getting into trouble.


Leadbelly increasingly resented Lomax as he discovered New York's black nightlife. Leadbelly's violent past and emotional turbulence gave Lomax more than enough reason to be a little afraid of his discovery. Some minor disagreements and Leadbelly's failure to meet commitments led to their parting in March 1935.

Leadbelly returned to Louisiana, while Lomax moved to Texas to work on his book, which was behind schedule. Destitute, Leadbelly hired a lawyer to obtain money from Lomax. A settlement was reached in which Lomax was allowed to complete the book, and it was published in November 1936.

DARLING OF THE LEFT

In March 1936, a year after he left New York, Leadbelly was back with his wife Martha. Without Lomax, Leadbelly initially floundered, but after he met lecturer Mary Barnicle of New York University, he got an introduction to left-wing political factions within New York society, which had taken a strong interest in Leadbelly's folk music.


Surviving on welfare and odd jobs, Leadbelly and his wife struggled to make ends meet. Lomax's book was not selling well. Jazz and swing now dominated popular tastes. The American folk music following and Leadbelly's audiences were largely confined to members of the political Left. To attract a wider audience, Leadbelly added topical and protest songs about segregation to his repertoire. He also made some non-commercial recordings, a number of which ended up in the archives of East Tennessee State University. He also made a children's album.

ANOTHER CONVICTION

In 1939, Leadbelly was arrested for assaulting a man with a knife. He reportedly stabbed the man sixteen times. Convicted of third-degree assault, Leadbelly was sentenced to less than a year in prison. During the trial, Leadbelly made his first commercial recordings since 1935 for Musicraft, a small company with left-wing political affiliations. He received a small advance on royalties for his efforts.

The fifty-one-year-old Leadbelly began serving his fourth prison sentence in 1939. By 1940, after serving eight months, he was released and back in New York City. About this time a folk music community was springing up in New York City which would achieve tremendous growth during and after World War II.

A LIVING-AND A DYING

Leadbelly befriended the then-unknown Woody Guthrie and invited him to move into the apartment he was sharing with his wife. Leadbelly's apartment soon became a gathering place for folk singers and the scene of all-night jam sessions. Leadbelly meanwhile made radio appearances and recorded for RCA and the Library of Congress. He also made a recording for Moe Asch's Folkway Records, which would become his principle record label.


In 1944, Leadbelly headed west to Hollywood in hopes of getting work in the studios. Although he was unable to land work in movies, he made a decent living playing club circuits. He recorded for Capitol records, which used the best recording technology that he had so far encountered. But by late 1946, he had had enough of the West Coast and returned to New York. With the revival of Dixieland jazz and renewed interest in "origins" music, Leadbelly found his music increasingly in vogue.


In 1946 a book entitled A Tribute of Huddie Ledbetter was published in England. Leadbelly was able to make a modest living playing in jazz clubs and giving occasional concerts.

In 1949, while briefly touring in France, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He died in New York City six months later, on December 6, 1949. He is buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church graveyard near Mooringsport, Louisiana.

People tributing Leadbelly at his grave

Sam Lightnin' Hopkins (FINNISH)

 

SALAMA ISKEE TEXASIIN

Sam Hopkins oli yksi Abe ja Frances Hopkinsin kuudesta lapsesta ja syntyi 16. maaliskuuta 1912, Centervillessä, Texasissa, pienessä farmarikylässä pohjoiseen Houstonista. Hopkinsin muusikko isä, Abe, oli surmattu korttipelin päätteeksi kun Sam oli vasta kolme ja Samin isoisä oli hirttänyt itsensä paetakseen orjuuden nöyryytystä. Kun hänen isänsä oli kuollit, Samin äiti, Francis Sims Hopkins, otti neljä poikaansa ja yhden tyttärensä ja muutti perheensä kanssa asumaan siskonsa luokse Texasin Leonaan.

Ollessaan kahdeksan vuotias, hän kyhäili ensimmäisen kitaransa sikarilaatikosta ja rautalangasta. Hänen veljensä Joel opetti Samille perusotteita kitaralla, mutta todellisen blues koulutuksensa hän sai Texasilaiseen Blind Lemon Jeffersoniin tutustuttuaan. Hopkins tapasi Jeffersonin vuoden 1920 paikkeilla Baptisti kirkon tapahtumassa Buffalossa, Texasissa. Jefferson oli laulaen ja soittaen esiintymässä yleisölle; Hopkins, joka oli vasta kahdeksan, livahti lavan perälle ja yhtyi esitykseen. Ensin Jefferson suuttui, mutta huomatessaan että Hopkins oli vasta nuori poika, hän herkistyi ja opetti Hopkinsille muutaman lickin.

Melko pian tämän jälkeen Hopkins jätti kodin vaeltaakseen pitkin Texasia soitellen kaduilla, picnic kutsuilla, juhlissa ja tansseissa -- usein pelkkien tippien toivossa. Jo kahdeksan vuotiaana hän tiesi ettei halunnut elää sitä vaikeaa ja työntäyteistä elämää mitä niin monet mustat tuohon aikaan joutuivat elämään.  "Chop that cotton for six bits a day, plow that mule for six bits a day--that wasn't in storage for me," hän sanoi Les Blankille "The Sun's Gonna Shine" dokumentti elokuvassa. Erityisesti siksi että Lightnin’ oli hyvin nuorella iällä alkanut kierteleväksi muusikoksi hän sai todella vähän koulutusta ja pysyi kertoman mukaan lopun ikäänsä lukutaidottomana ja sivistymättömänä. Elämänkokemusta hänelle karttui ajan myötä senkin edestä.

Aikanaan Hopkins otti uudelleen yhteyttä Jeffersoniin ja toimi jonkin aikaa tämän oppaana. Sitten 1920-luvun lopulla Hopkins perusti duon serkkunsa kanssa joka oli blues laulaja Alger "Texas" Alexander. Kaksikko esiintyi paikallisissa kapakoissa ja kiertelivät itä-Texasia.

Hän nai Elamer Laceyn jossain vaiheessa 1920-lukua ja saivat yhdessä useita lapsia. Kun Hopkins avioitui, hän ryhtyi ensimmäisen vaimonsa kanssa työntekijöiksi Tom Moorelle, farmarille jonka paatuneisuudesta Hopkins kertoo laulussaan "Tom Moore's Blues." Puolivälissä 1930-lukua Lacey, turhautuneena miehensä vaeltelevasta elämäntyylistä, otti lapset ja jätti Hopkinsin.

Tähän aikaan Hopkins oli jatkuvasti rahaton. Hän oli harjaksinen kaveri, joka mieluiten nautti liikaa viskiä, pelasi nekin vähät rahat mitä ansaitsi musiikillaan, hän oli väkivaltainen ja aggressiivinen, ja hänellä oli todella suuri ego. Hän vietti (omien sanojensa mukaan) kymmenen tai useamman tapauksen takia aikaa putkassa ja linnassa pahoinpitelyiden tai muiden vastaavien rikkeiden takia. Mutta oikeiden ihmisten seurassa, hän saattoi olla maailman paras ystävä ja kumppani: erityisesti naisen kanssa jota hän kutsui vaimoksi vaikka tällä oli aviomies ja lapsia joiden kanssa vietti päivänsä mutta yöt nainen vietti Hopkinsin seurassa.
 

Yhdessä vaiheessa hänet tuomittiin chain gangiin seksin harrastamisesta valkoisen naisen kanssa. Hän ilmeisesti istui myös Houstonin lääninvankilassa (Houston County Prison Farm) 1930-luvun lopulla. Viimeisen tuomionsa jälkeen Hopkins muutti Houstoniin Alexanderin kanssa epäonnistuen aikeissaan nousta julkisuuteen musiikkinsa avulla siellä. Työskenneltyään rautateillä ja katumuusikkona, hän oli 1940-luvun alkuun mennessäpalannut Centervilleen ja työskenteli farmilla apulaisena.

1943 Hopkins nai kolmannen vaimonsa, Antoinette Charlesin ja muutti suurelle tilalle pohjoiseen Dallasista, missä hän työskenteli jonkin aikaa vuokrafarmarina (sharecropper). Vuoden 1946 paikkeilla hän sai uuden kitaran sukulaiseltaan "Uncle" Lucian Hopkinsilta. Tämän innoittamana Hopkins muutti takaisin Houstoniin missä hän ja Alexander alkoivat jälleen esiintyä paikallisissa baareissa.

CALIFORNIA

Kaksikko veti omaa esitystään Houstonin Third Wardissa vuonna 1946 kun kykyjen etsijä Lola Anne Cullum sattui paikalle. Hän oli juuri tehnyt levysopimuksen Los Angelesilaisen Aladdin Recordsin ja pianisti Amos Milburnin välille ja Cullum näki saman mahdollisuuden Hopkinsin tomuisessa kantri bluessissa. Alexander ei kuulunut suunnitelmaan; sen sijaan Cullum teki Hopkinsista ja pianisti Wilson Smithistä duon, ja Aladdin Recordsin toimitusjohtaja päätti että pari tarvitsi enemmän dynamismia nimiinsä ja nimesi heidät Wilson "Thunder" Smithiksi ja Sam "Lightnin'' Hopkinsiksi. Samana vuonna 1946 he levyttivät 12 kappaletta ensimmäisen sessionsa aikana Los Angelesissa. "Katie Mae Blues," hänen ensimmäinen singlensä, oli hitti Houstonissa. Hopkins levytti lisää Aladdinille vuonna 1947.

Muutaman vuoden jälkeen Hopkins poti niin pahasti koti-ikävää että jätti Aladdinin ja teki sopimuksen Houstonilaisen Gold Star Recordsin kanssa Texasissa. Hopkins vaati että levy-yhtiön omistaja Bill Quinn maksoi hänelle 100 dollaria per kappale joka kerta kun hän levytti musiikkiaan; hän uskoi tulevansa huijatuksi muuten. Todellisuudessa Hopkins menetti tällä menetelmällä valtavia summia rahaa.

Läpi 1950-luvun Hopkins levytti pienille levy-yhtiöille ja nousi Billboard lehden r'and'b Top 10 listalle lauluilla kuten "T Model Blues" & "Coffee Blues."Hänen nopea tempoiset kappaleensa tältä aikakaudelta auttoivat rock and rollia kehittymään, mutta rockkia kuunteleva nuoriso ei juurikaan kiinnostunut Hopkinsista itsestään. Asiat menivät vielä huonompaan suuntaan kun hänen alkuperäinen musta yleisönsä alkoi tykästyä nuorekkaampaan musiikkiin. Suosion huvetessa levy-yhtiöt menettivät kiinnostuksensa häneen ja mies lopetti levyttämisen 1956.

TAKAISIN PINNALLE

Noin kolme vuotta sen jälkeen kun hän oli kadonnut musiikki markkinoilta, Hopkinsin "löysi" Houstonilainen folkloristi Robert "Mack" McCormick ja esitteli tämän mm. yliopistojen opiskelijoille, jotka pitivät bluessia folk musiikkina. Samana vuonna folkloristi Samuel Charters omisti kokonaisen luvun kirjassaan "The Country Blues" Hopkinsille ja äänitti koko levyllisen materiaalia julkaistavaksi Folkways merkin alla.

Kun levy-yhtiöt äkkäsivät että Hopkinsin hitaanpuoleinen kitaransoitto ja proosamaiset lyriikat iskivät valkoiseen yleisöön, ne ryntäsivät nauhoittamaan hänen musiikkiaan. 1960-luvun alussa Lightnin' Hopkinsin maine yhtenä arvostetuimmista blues artisteista oli sinetöity. Vuonna 1962 hän voitti Beat lehden International "Jazz Critics' Poll in the New Star" palkinnon, mieslaulajat kategoriassa. Hän oli vihdoin saanut osakseen sen arvostuksen ja huomion joka hänelle kuului.

Läpi 1960-luvun ja aina 1970-luvulle asti Hopkins julkaisi yhden tai kaksi albumia vuodessa ja oli kiertueilla, hän liikkui kaikkialla USA:ssa ja voitti lentopelkonsa osallistuakseen vuoden 1964 American Folk Blues Festivaaliin sekä vieraili Saksassa ja Hollannissa 13 vuotta myöhemmin. Hänestä tuli yksi maailmansodan jälkeisen planeettamme yhdestätoista arvostetuimmista blues artisteista. Hän esiintyi pitkin Eurooppaa ja vietti satoja levytys-sessioita erilaisten pienten levy-yhtiöiden hoteissa.

Samalla kun hänen maineensa kasvoi, hänen asenteensa pysyi samana kuin se oli ollut hänen vielä kulkiessaan pitkin Texasia katumuusikkona. "Hän inhosi lentämistä ja kieltäytyi omistamasta puhelinta," Les Blank kirjoitti "Living Blues" lehdessä. "Hän torjui 2,000 dollarin keikkoja mutta esiintyi silti pienissä Houstonilaisissa kuppiloissa 17 dollarilla."

VIIMEISET VUODET

Vuonna 1967 Hopkins esiintyi Les Blankin lyhyessä dokumenttielokuvassa "The Sun’s Gonna Shine". Dokumentti kertoo nuoresta Sam Hopkinsista joka unelmoi saavuttavansa jotain parempaa musiikkinsa avulla. Toinen dokumentti tuli seuraavana vuonna, "The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins", joka voitti Gold Hugo palkinnon Chicagon Filmi Festivaaleilla vuoden 1970 parhaana dokumenttielokuvana.

Hänestä tuli vähemmän aktiivinen auto-onnettomuuden jälkeen 1970, jonka johdosta hän joutui pitkään pitämään niskatukea ja hänen kuntonsa heikkeni. Joka tapauksessa hän jatkoi työskentelyä läpi 1970-luvun matkustellen USA:ssa, Canadassa ja Euroopassa kiertueilla. Hän matkusti Japaniin ja esiintyi kuusi kertaa siellä vuonna 1978.

Hän kuoli ruokatorven syöpään 30. tammikuuta 1982 Houstonissa, Texasissa, 69 vuoden ikäisenä. Kuolemansa hetkellä, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins oli maailmanhistorian eniten levyttänyt artisti.
Hopkinsia muistellessaan, dokumenttiohjaaja Blank kertoi Drustille: "Hän oli pelle ja oraakkeli, nokkela ja lurjus. Kuten Shakespeare, Hän ymmärsi kaikkia ihmisiä ja kaikki heidän tunteensa. Hän oli elegantti puhemies joka antoi sanat niille tunteille mitä meidän kaikkien sydämmistä löytyy."

Tuntemattoman ihmisen kuvaama videopätkä jossa hän näyttää missä Hopkinsin hauta on.

 Hopkinsin tytär katsomassa isänsä kunniaksi tehtyä patsasta.

Sam Hopkinsin hautakivi.

Sam Lightnin' Hopkins (ENGLISH)

 That Woman named Mary

LIGHTNIN' STRIKES TEXAS

Sam Hopkins was one of Abe and Frances Hopkins' six children and was born on March 16, 1912, in Centerville, Texas, in a small farm town north of Houston. Hopkins's musician father, Abe, was killed over a card game when Sam was only three, and Sam's grandfather had hung himself to escape the indignities of slavery. After his father died, Sam's mother, Francis Sims Hopkins, moved him and his four brothers and one sister to Leona, Texas.

When Sam was eight, he made his first guitar out of a cigar box and chicken wire. His brother Joel taught him the basic chords, but it was at the feet of Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson that Hopkins began his real blues education. Hopkins met Jefferson around 1920 at a Baptist Church Association meeting in Buffalo, Texas. Jefferson was singing and playing for the crowd; Hopkins, who was only eight, got behind the stage and joined in. At first Jefferson was angered, but when he noticed that Hopkins was just a boy, he softened and showed Hopkins a few licks.

It wasn't too much later that Hopkins left home to hobo through Texas playing in the streets, at picnics, parties, and dances--often just for tips. Even at the age of eight he knew he wasn't willing to live the hard life most Texas blacks faced in those days.  "Chop that cotton for six bits a day, plow that mule for six bits a day--that wasn't in storage for me," he told Les Blank in the film documentary The Sun's Gonna Shine. Particularly since Lightnin’ claimed to have left home to become a traveling musician at age 8 he had very little schooling and remained functionally illiterate his entire life.

Hopkins eventually reconnected with Jefferson and for a time served as his guide. Then in the late 1920s Hopkins formed what was to be a long-running duo with his cousin, blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander. The two played the Houston bar circuit and toured eastern Texas.

Apparently he married Elamer Lacey sometime in the 1920s, and they had several children.  When Hopkins married, he and his first wife hired themselves out to Tom Moore, a farmer whose callousness Hopkins immortalized in the song, "Tom Moore's Blues." but by the mid-1930s Lacey, frustrated by his wandering lifestyle, took the children and left Hopkins.

During this era Hopkins was chronically short of money. Hopkins was a bristly fellow, one who enjoyed his alcohol rather too much, who gambled away what little money he earned from his music, who had a very violent streak, and a very highly developed ego. He spent (by his own reckoning) a dozen or more stretches in jail for assault and related charges. But with the right people, he could be a bosom friend and companion, in particular with the woman he called his “wife”, who actually had a legal husband and children with whom she continued to live at night while spending her days with Hopkins.

At one point he was sentenced to a chain gang for committing adultery with a white woman. He probably also served time in the Houston County Prison Farm in the late 1930s. After the last sentence Hopkins moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. After working on the railroads and singing on the streets, By the early 1940s he was back in Centerville working as a farm hand.

In 1943 Hopkins married his third wife, Antoinette Charles, and moved to a large farm north of Dallas, where he worked for a time as a sharecropper. Around 1946, he was given a new guitar by a family friend, "Uncle" Lucian Hopkins. That inspired Sam to move back to Houston where he teamed up with his old partner Tex Alexander to play the local beer joints.

Instrumental guitar jamming

Cotton

CALIFORNIA DREAMING

The pair was dishing out their lowdown brand of blues in Houston's Third Ward in 1946 when talent scout Lola Anne Cullum came across them. She had already engineered a pact with Los Angeles-based Aladdin Records for another of her charges, pianist Amos Milburn, and Cullum saw the same sort of opportunity within Hopkins' dusty country blues. Alexander wasn't part of the deal; instead, Cullum paired Hopkins with pianist Wilson Smith, And Aladdin Records executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and so he dubbed Wilson "Thunder" Smith and Sam "Lightnin'' Hopkins. In the same year 1946 They recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in Los Angeles. "Katie Mae Blues," his first single, was a hit around Houston. Hopkins recorded more sides for Aladdin in 1947.

After a few years Hopkins had grew homesick and left Aladdin and contracted with Houston's Gold Star Records back in Houston, Texas. Hopkins insisted that record company owner Bill Quinn pay him $100 cash per song at the recording sessions; he was convinced that he woud be ripped off otherwise. Looking back, however, historians have commented that this arrangement caused Hopkins to lose large sums in royalties.

Through the early 1950s, Hopkins recorded for small labels and hit Billboard magazine's r'and'b Top 10 with songs like "T Model Blues" & "Coffee Blues." His uptempo numbers of this era helped to pioneer rock and roll, but rock's teenage audience had little interest in Hopkins himself. To make matters worse, his original black audience also abandoned him for a more teen-oriented sound. Given his declining popularity, record companies lost interest in Hopkins, and he stopped recording as a popular artist in 1956.

Coffe Blues

Katie May Blues

REDISCOVERED BY McCORMICK

Scarcely three years after his exit from the popular marketplace, Hopkins was "discovered" by Houston folklorist Robert "Mack" McCormick and introduced to a college-educated audience, which saw the blues as "folk music." That same year folklorist Samuel Charters devoted a chapter of his book called The Country Blues to Hopkins and recorded a whole album of Hopkins's material for release on Folkways.

When labels realized that Hopkins's sparse acoustic guitar and understated prose appealed to white audiences, they rushed to record him.  By the early 1960s Lightnin' Hopkins reputation as one of the most compelling blues performers was cemented. In 1962 he won Down Beat magazine's International Jazz Critics' Poll in the New Star, Male Singer category. He had finally earned the success and recognition which were overdue. 

Through the 1960s and into the 1970s Hopkins released one or sometimes two albums a year and toured, he travelled widely in the United States, and overcame his fear of flying to join the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival; visit Germany and the Netherlands 13 years later. He became one of the post-World War 11 blues’ most prolific talents. He toured Europe and completed hundreds of sessions for scores of major and independent labels.

But while his fame grew, his attitude toward his career remained much the same as it had when he was roaming around Texas. "He hated to fly, and refused to have a telephone," Les Blank wrote in Living Blues. "He turned down tour offers of $2,000 a week yet played in small rough Houston bars for $17 a night."

Mojo Hand

Mr Charlie scene from The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin Hopkins

LAST YEARS

In 1967 Hopkins was featured in Les Blank’s short subject documentary, The Sun’s Gonna Shine.  It is a documentary about young Sam Hopkins dreaming of reaching something better with his music. Another documentary came at the following year, The Blues According to Lightnin’ Hopkins, which won a Gold Hugo Award at the Chicago Film Festival as the best documentary of 1970. These are one of the best blues based documentarys ever made.

He became less active after being injured in a car crash in 1970 that put his neck in a brace and initiated a steady decline in his health. Nevertheless, he maintained a compulsive work rate during the 1970s, touring the United States, Canada, and Europe. He travelled to Japan to play a six-city tour of in 1978.

He died of cancer of the esophagus on January 30, 1982 in Houston, Texas, at the age of 69. By the time of his death, Sam “Lightnin’” Hopkins was likely the most recorded blues artist in history.
Remembering Hopkins, filmmaker Blank told Drust, "He was a clown and oracle, wit and scoundrel. Like Shakespeare, he had an understanding of all people and all their feelings. He [was] an eloquent spokesman for the human soul which dwells in us all."

 Video from Hopkins' gravesite

 Hopkins' daughter and the statue of her father

Lightnin Hopkins Statue staring at the Cafe Store

Hopkins' Grave: 

"Here lies Lightnin' who stood famous and tall,

He didn't hesitate to Give his All"

R.L. Burnside (ENGLISH)

INTRO

An era in American music ended when legendary blues guitarist R.L. Burnside passed away in 2005. A fixture on the Mississippi Delta blues scene for decades, Burnside and his gritty, growling musical style was a living link to the black musicians who originated the Delta blues back in the 1920s and from whom he first learned how to play. In the early 1990s Burnside gained fame when he was "discovered" by new generation of blues aficionados and rock and rollers.

Beginning at Mississippi

Robert Lee Burnside was born November 23, 1926 in Oxford, Lafayette County, MS, in the hill country above the Delta. Burnside spent much of his life in the northern section of the state and made his home in Holly Springs. A triangular basin between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, the Delta was long an impoverished, rural place, with an economy dominated by an unfair system in which whites owned the land and black sharecroppers worked it for meager wages.

The blues was a musical style that emerged as a key element of African-American culture in the twentieth century, and was born in the 1920s out of the Delta's pervasive injustice and racism. "Working for the man, you couldn't say nothing but you could sing about it, ya know," Burnside told Ed Mabe in a 1999 interview that was published on the Web site Perfect Sound Forever, when asked about the starting point of the blues. "Couldn't tell him what he done wrong."

Burnside was himself a sharecropper in his earliest working years, and did not begin playing the guitar until the age of 16.  He came under the influence of a neighbor, "Mississippi Fred" McDowell, who was one of the pioneers of the blues genre. He learned a lot from him, and the highly rhythmic style that Burnside plays is evident in McDowell's recordings as well.

Despite the otherworldly country-blues sounds put down by Burnside, his other influences were surprisingly contemporary: his cousin-in-law Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins. But Burnside's music is pure country Delta juke joint blues, heavily rhythm-oriented and usually played with a slide. His final inspiration to pick up the guitar he got in his early twenties, after hearing the 1948 John Lee Hooker single Boogie Chillen.

Chigago The Windy City

In the late 1940's, lured by the promise of well-paying factory jobs, Burnside headed north to Chicago, where his father had settled. He married Alice Mae Taylor in 1949, with whom he would have twelve children (some sources say 14). He found a thriving black musical subculture there, and often hung out with Muddy Waters, who would come to dominate the Chicago blues scene. Waters, who was one of the first blues men to use an electric guitar, married Burnside's cousin. Burnside dabbled in music when he lived in Chicago, but most of his time was devoted to a job in a foundry.

But things did not turn out as he had hoped. Within the span of one month his father, brother, and uncle were all murdered in the city, a tragedy that R.L. Burnside would later draw upon in his work, particularly in his version of Skip James' Hard Time Killing Floor and the talking blues R.L.'s Story, the opening and closing tracks on his album from year 2000 "Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down".


In around 1959 he fled the urban violence and headed back to Mississippi to become a farm worker and raise a large family. There he drove a farm tractor by day and at night traveled around to play guitar in the juke joints near his home in Holly Springs, the seat of Marshall County. He was also a purveyor of fine moonshine.

Back at Mississippi

R.L spent six months in the notorious Parchman Farm for killing a man in 1959, who attacked him after Burnside beat him in a dice game. The man owned him 400 dollars and was not willing to pay him. He spent such a short time inside because his farming skills for his powerful white employer were unique and too important worker. Of the murder, he later said in an Observer Music Magazine interview: "I didn't mean to kill nobody. I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head and two times in the chest. Him dying was between him and the Lord."

In 1960 Muddy Waters played the Newport Jazz Festival, which incited widespread interest in the blues across America and Europe.  In 1967 folk lorists David Evans and George Mitchell came down to Mississippi to record Burnside and other obscure musicians who had learned from the original players back in the 1930s and 1940s. When Mitchell found Burnside, his electric guitar was broken, and so he recorded playing Mitchell's acoustic guitar. This caused him to be presented outside his community for many years as an old fashioned country blues artist and a solo performer. they made the first recordings of R.L. Burnside, and half an LP of his songs was issued on the Arhoolie label. this compilation record was simply titled Mississippi Delta Blues. They were powerful country blues, and they earned Burnside enough reputation and fame to be invited to play at the occasional folk festivals, and he even made a tour of Canada in 1969.

 His drone-based style was a characteristic of North Mississippi hill country blues rather than Mississippi Delta blues. Like other country blues musicians, he did not always adhere to 12- or 16-bar blues patterns, often adding extra beats according to his preference. He called this "Burnside style" and often commented that his backing musicians needed to be familiar with his style in order to be able to play along with him.

His wife Alice would sing with him sometimes and By the late 1970's his sons Joseph and Daniel and their brother-in-law Calvin Jackson had formed the Sound Machine, whose main gig was backing up their father. Burnside recorded with them in the late 1970s, and they occasionally performed at blues festivals in Britain and West Germany. in the audience there were always a few aspiring guitarists watching R.L. and learning musical ideas, just as his own boys had done a few years before. Burnsides' white "apprentice" Kenny Brown would later join their band too.

Discovered at Old Age

Burnside remained mostly unknown, however, until New York Times music critic Robert Palmer came to Mississippi to make a documentary film with Dave Stewart of the Eurhythmics. The project grew out of Palmer's 1982 book, Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta. So Palmer interviewed Burnside in 1990, and In 1992 he was featured alongside his friend Junior Kimbrough (whose Holly Spings juke joint Burnside lives next to), in a documentary film, Deep Blues. It now that he began hitting full stride with tours and his music, thanks largely to the efforts of Fat Possum Records. His debut recording, Bad Luck City, was released that same year with the documentary movie on Fat Possum Records.

 Next album, Too Bad Jim racked up terrific sales for Fat Possum, and made music critics say it was one of the most important blues records of the decade. Burnside's raw playing style, often built around a single guitar chord, and equally gritty vocals showcased the original style of the Mississippi Delta blues in all its unvarnished glory. Indie rocker Jon Spencer was a big fan of R.L, Spencer and bandmates Russell Simins and Judah Bauer traveled down to Mississippi to record with Burnside. The result was A Ass Pocket of Whiskey album, In his mid-sixties, this was RL's fifth album. It was produced by Spencer and released on the indie-rock label Matador in 1996. A review in the Austin American-Statesman by Michael Corcoran called it "a conspiracy of overamplified boogie and drunken epithets that ended up on many critics' top 10 lists for 1996."Burnside had been initially wary about collaborating with a group of post-punk New York City rockers, and was skeptical about the commercial viability. "When I first heard the final mix, I said to Jon, 'It ain't gonna sell nothin,'" Burnside told Obrecht in Guitar Player. "He said, 'Oh, you don't know, man!' Now it's outselling the rest of my albums."

 Burnside had less success with 1998's Come on In, a studio remix of some of his best-known tracks, with samples and electronic rhythms dubbed in. One of its tracks, "It's Bad You Know," earned a spot in the hit HBO mob drama The Sopranos in a third-season episode and received substantial radio airplay.

As Burnside had been recording intermittently since the late '60s a spate of re-issues and live recorded albums began to appear in the 2000's. Chief among them were Mississippi Hill Country Blues, largely recorded in the Netherlands in the 1980's.

Sitting Down in Heaven

The year that Burnside turned 74, he released Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down (for Fat Possum Label). On a couple of its tracks he revisits the tragedies of the year in which so many of his family members died unnecessarily. Subsequent issues include Burnside on Burnside, a live recording, and A Bothered Mind, which includes a track, "My Name is Robert Too," co-written with another famous fan, Robert "Kid Rock" Ritchie. On his occasional tours, Burnside played to sold-out audiences, and his family's musical heritage stretched into a fourth generation when he brought along grandson Cedric as his drummer. His work was appreciated and he was the winner of W. C. Handy Blues Awards in 2000 and two in 2002.

In mid-2005, Burnside was hospitalized in Memphis, where one of his sons ran a blues club, and died on September 1, 2005. Burnside never fully recovered from the attack few years earlier. He was at the age of 79. "He never really wanted a career," said Johnson of the Fat Possum label in an interview with Spencer Leigh of London's Independent newspaper. "We just gave him one."

R.L. was the bread-earner for an enormous family -- his wife, twelve children, and multiple grandchildren -- all of whom lived under the same leaky roof in deep rural Mississippi. R.L. didn't perform to make a living, he performed to feed a family, and he wasn't losing any sleep over what music critics or traditionalists thought about the record.