LEADBELLY’S LAST SESSIONS: PART ONE, TWO, THREE, AND FOUR

Last month’s Lead Belly 10″ inclusion was pretty popular, so this month I’m posting the great document that encapsulates his final recording sessions, and should convert anyone who isn’t (for whatever reason) already a devotee of his inimitable musical and cultural legacy. These field recordings were done over the course of three evenings in September of 1948, just nine months before he died from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Recorded in he and his wife Martha’s NYC apartment by Fredric Ramsey Jr., they had no idea these would be the last, as he was only 61 at the time. The songs are all one-takes, and appear in the order they were recorded, with only some extraneous dialogue removed to conserve space. Plenty is included however, and contains lively descriptions and personal anecdotes that are (among other things) a rare first-person glimpse into early 20th-century African American experience. The first two sides are a cappella, with all subsequent sides featuring the trademark 12-string guitar (side three containing a version of John Henry that will melt your shoes - just one of many highlights). Lead Belly’s sense of timing, rhythm, musical intuition, virtuosity, personal experience, and vast library of songs (effortlessly plucked from memory), offers the listener an unrivaled compendium of American folk blues - not to mention all the tunes that rock and roll swiped. From the booklet notes:

“At the time of these recordings, recording tape was in its experimental stage. In 1953 when the tapes were taken out of their original boxes and played, some of the tape was found to be damaged and in a few cases it adhered to the next winding. We proceeded then as follows. Peter Bartok re-dubbed all the tape, and Ramsey edited the dubbed tape for a six-sided long-playing records set. However it was found that by eliminating most of the bands as suggested by Ramsey we could get 30 minutes on one side of a 12″ record to make a four-records set.” - Moses Asch

“Perhaps it would be fairest to Leadbelly to say that when he made the recordings contained in this set of long-playing records, he had no idea they were to be his last. Nor were they recorded under “professional” circumstances; in a big studio with swatches of acoustical dampers, a dozen microphones to choose from, a battery of control consoles, and a staff of prompters and technicians. Had they been made this way, they might have been quite different.

A SHORT TECHNICAL NOTE ABOUT RECORDINGS OF LEADBELLY’S LAST SESSIONS: As stated before, the facilities of larger recording studios were not available for this project. The acoustics of the New York apartment were corrected as much as possible with drapes, and the best equipment available in the early days of tape recording was used. For the first evening, a small voice microphone was employed. For the second and third evenings (with guitar) it was thought that a dynamic microphone of good quality would provide the best pick-up.

It would therefore be misleading to claim that, by todays standards, these are “extended range” recordings, although we do believe that for the most part they are adequately clean and crisp, and represent an advance over all other older, acetate recordings of Leadbelly. Everything has been done to clear the tapes of obvious defects due to faulty tape manufacture; some difficulty was experienced with tape purchased in good faith which began to peel off in spots not long after it had been used for recording. Fortunately, a better tape was made available before we had got too far along, and a majority of performances has been well preserved.”

“In the United States, not so long ago, we had a giant of a man with us, a singer and adventurer whose exploits, if we did not know the actual facts of his existence, might one day have been amplified into a sort of Paul Bunyan legend that could hardly have been more colorful than the truth. Leadbelly, or Huddie Leadbetter was Born in Mooringsport, Louisiana, son of a farmer who worked 68 acres of land in the Caddo Lake district. From the beginning, young Huddie was bewitched by music. One uncle had a guitar; his friends played small accordions, or “windjammers’” as they called them in that part-Cajun, part-Negro country. At twelve or thirteen, Huddie started riding off in the canebrakes and bottomlands to play for sukey jumps and breakdowns - Saturday night get-togethers in cabins and little, low dance halls. He was soon “good as they had on a windjammer,” according to his own testimony.

It was a rough crowd. In the North, social workers would probably have intervened. But late 19th century Negro youngsters in the South were allowed to go their way and settle their problems (no one considered them problems, anyway) amongst themselves. They drank, they made love and they got into fights.

It was one of these fights, a few years later, that started Huddie on the hardest part of his life, and shaped his career for years to come. In a bottomland fracas involving Huddie, a man was killed.

They hung the sentence on Huddie, and sent him to a prison camp, or country farm. He broke out of that, but soon got into other troubles. He was too young, too handsome, too powerful. Women couldn’t let him alone, and he couldn’t let them alone. But through it all - from 1918, when he was sentenced in the Bowie County Courthouse, Texas, to 1935, when he was released from the Angola State Prison Farm, in Louisiana  - Huddie kept close to his music. He broke jail, he rambled, he married and remarried, he picked cotton, he worked in a car agency; all this was part of, but strangely incidental to, the main drive of his life - the need to learn more songs, the need to perform them, anywhere.” - Fredric Ramsey

*For the MP3’s (as with the LP’s), songs are in groups within bands (or tracks), and breaks occur between bands not songs. The sides of each LP are listed as Part One - Side One (FP2941A), Part One - Side Two (FP2941B), and so on. There is one .zip archive for each LP side, eight total.

Folkways Records, FA 2941 A/B, FA 2941 C/D, FA 2942 A/B, FA 2942 C/D, 1962

**Part One - Side One (FP2941A):

Band 1
1. Yes, I Was Standing in the Bottom (1′40)
2. Yes, I’m Going Down in Louisiana (0′42)
3. Ain’t Going Down to the Well No More (1′23)
4. Dick Ligger’s Holler (0′43)
5. Liza Jane (2′08)
6. Dog Latin Song (0′52)
7. Leaving Blues (0′31)

Band 2
8. Go Down, Old Hannah (4:59)
9. The Blue Tailed Fly (Jimmie Crack Corn) (2′20)
10. Nobody in This World is Better Than Us (1′26)

Band 3
11. We’re in the Same Boat, Brother (2′18)
12. Looky Looky Yonder (1′33)
13. Jolly O the Ransom (0′57)

Band 4
14. Old Ship of Zion (1′51)
15. Bring Me a Little Water, Silvy (1′27)
16. Mistreatin’ Mama (1′24)
17. Black Betty (1′52)
18. Ain’t Going Down to the Well No More (2′45)

**Part One - Side Two (FP2941B):

Band 1
19. Yes, I’m Going Down in Louisiana (0′28)
20. I Don’t Know You, What Have I Done? (3′11)
21. Rock Island Line (1′03)
22. Old Man, Will Your Dog Catch a Rabbit? (1′29)
23. Shorty George (0′46)
24. Stewball (2′34)
25. Bottle Up and Go (1′25)
26. You Know I Got to Do It (0′52)
27. Ain’t It a Shame to Go Fishin’ on Sunday (1′21)
28. DeKalb Blues (Ain’t Gonna Drink No More) (2′37)
29. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (2′18)

Band 2
30. My Lindy Lou (1′08)
31. I’m Thinking of a Friend (3′22)

Band 3
32. He Never Said a Mumbling Word (2′28)
33. Gee, But I Want to Go Home (Army Life) (3′59)
34. In the World (2′01)
35. I Want to Go Home (1′26)

**Part Two - Side One (FP2941C):

Band 1:
36. New Iberia (3′08)
37. Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (3′11)
38. John Henry (4′59)

Band 2
39. Salty Dog (3′29)
40. National Defense Blues (3′30)
41. Easy, Mr. Tom (2′08)
42. Relax Your Mind (4′09)

Band 3
43. Bottle Up and Go (3′36)
44. Polly Wolly Wee (1′45)

**Part Two - Side Two (FP2941D)

Band 1
45. Pig Latin Song (2′10)
46. Hawaiian Song (2′15)
47. Drinkin’ Lum Y A Alla (1′50)
48. The Gray Goose (2′17)
49. Silver City Bound (6′01)
50. The Titanic (5′14)

Band 2
51. Death Letter Blues (3′30)
52. Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep (3′28)
53. He Never Said a Mumbling Word (2′49)

**Part Three - Side One (FP2942A):

Band 1
54. The Midnight Special (2′11)
55. Boll Weevil (3′06)
56. Careless Love (6′29)

Band 2
57. Easy Rider (3′00)
58. Fannin Street (Mr. Tom Hughes’ Town)(Cry to Me) (3′31)
59. DeKalb Blues (Ain’t Going to Drink No More) (3′54)

Band 3
60. Birmingham Jail (2′56)
61. Old Riley  (1′46)
62. Julie Ann Johnson (1′11)
63. It’s Tight Like That (3′12)

**Part Three - Side Two (FP2942B):

Band 1
64. 4, 5 and 9 (4′53)

Band 2
65. Good Morning Babe, How Do You Do? (0′41)
66. Jail House Blues (4′31)

Band 3
67. Well, You Know I Had to Do It (2′56)
68. Irene (Goodnight Irene) (1′22)

Band 4
69. Story of the 25 Cent Dude (2′20)
70. How Come You Do Me Like You Do? (3′24)
72. Hello Central, Give Me Long Distance Phone (5′29)
73. Hesitation Blues (2′17)

Band 5
74. I’ll Be Down on the Last Bread Wagon (3′35)

**Part Four - Side One (FP2942C):

Band 1
75. Digging My Potatoes (4′00)
76. Springtime in the Rockies (3′02)
77. Chinatown (1′12)

Band 2
78. Rock Island Line (1′57)
79. Backwater Blues (3′27)
80. Governor Pat Neff (Sweet Mary) (3′12)

Band 3
81. Irene (Goodnight Irene) (2′44)
82. Easy, Mr. Tom (2′16)
83. In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down (2′54)

Band 4
84. I’m Alone Because I Love You (2′54)
85. House of the Rising Sun (2′23)
86. Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep  (1′58)

**Part Four - Side Two (FP2942D):

Band 1
87. Talk About Fannin Street (3′41)
88. Fannin Street (Mr. Tom Hughes’ Town) (3′36)
89. Sugar’d Beer (1′40)
90. Didn’t Old John Cross the Water? (2′01)

Band 2
91. Nobody Knows You When Your Down and Out (3′19)
92. Bully of the Town (2′08)

Band 3
93. Sweet Jenny Lee (1′54)
94. Yellow Gal (2′04)
95. He Was the Man (3′48)
96. We’re in the Same Boat, Brother (4′16)

Band 4
97. Leaving Blues (2′36)

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KINGS OF THE TWELVE STRING

Released in 1973 by Flyright Records out of the UK, this compilation of tunes by some familiar folk blues artists segues nicely out of the above, and offers another taste of the unique strand of folk-blues as performed on a 12-string guitar. Indeed these are some of the greats, featuring four tracks by Blind Willie McTell, and includes Seth Richard, Willie Baker, Barbecue Bob, George Carter, Charlie Turner, and Charlie Lincoln (aka Charlie Hicks). Prior to digital re-mastering techniques, many of the original 78’s (from which these were direct copies) hadn’t been transferred, making compilations like this a great find for enthusiasts who didn’t have access to the originals. Much of this music has since been re-issued in one form or another, especially Blind Willie McTell’s extant recordings, and here presented is a small sample of that deep sound. Most of these recordings are probably from the 20’s and 30’s.

Flyright Records, Flyright LP 101, 1973

Side One:

1. Dark Night Blues (Blind Willie McTell) (2′56)
2. Mama, Let Me Scoop For You (Blind Willie McTell) (3′10)
3. Ain’t It Grand To Be A Christian (Blind Willie McTell) (3′04)
4. Loving Talking Blues (Blind Willie McTell) (2′37)
5. Skoodeldum Doo (Seth Richard) (3′08)
6. Lonely Seth Blues (Seth Richard) (3′17)
7. No No Blues (Willie Baker) (2′49)

Side Two:

1. How Long Pretty Mama (Barbecue Bob) (3′23)
2. Barbecue Blues (Barbecue Bob) (3′07)
3. Ghost Woman Blues (George Carter) (2′53)
4. Weeping Willow Woman (George Carter) (2′42)
5. Kansas City Dog Walk (Charlie Turner) (2′58)
6. Depot Blues (Charlie Lincoln) (3′00)
7. Mama, Don’t Rush Me (Charlie Lincoln) (3′06)

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BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON/SON HOUSE

Blind Lemon is referenced by Lead Belly in the above in a nice anecdote, so I might as well give him his due by posting the only record I have that contains his music. Paired by LP sides with the mighty and incomparable Son House (Eddie James House Jr. - one of my all time favorites), this record is a delightful addition to any folk blues collection. This Biograph record published in 1972 is a step ahead of the “Kings…” LP, in that it provides at least some information regarding the artists (the above containing only artist’s names and song titles), as well as information on the original 78 recordings; labels, dates, etc. I am less concerned with that stuff and more interested in the music, and as contemporaries of Lead Belly, this is a another glance at some lions in the mix of early to mid-century African American folk blues. These tracks were recorded between 1926 - 1941. From the liner notes:

“Son House was born on March 21, 1902, on a farm in Coahoma County, just outside of Lyon, a small town a few miles from Clarksdale, Miss. When he was about eight years old he moved to Louisiana where he spent a good part of his youth. In 1928 he started playing the guitar and two years later through a recommendation by his friend Charlie Patton he began recording for the Paramount Record Company. Of the nine sides he recorded for Paramount only six have been found. These sessions were made in Grafton, Wisconsin in the summer of 1930 and are considered among the greatest blues performances recorded in the thirties” - Arnold S. Caplan

“Yeh, I’ll tell you another guy who used to play. I loved to hear him play but couldn’t nobody never be lucky enough to dance by his music. That was Lemon Jefferson… Lemon was one of the crack-batters in record making” - Son House

Biograph BLP-12040, 1972

Side One:

Son House
1. My Black Mama, Part 1 (3′10)
2. My Black Mama, Part 2 (3′16
3. Preachin’ The Blues, Part 1 (3′01)
4. Preachin’ The Blues, Part 2 (2′50)
5. Dry Spell Blues, Part 1 (3′08)
6. Dry Spell Blues, Part 2 (3′11)
7. Delta Blues (Leroy Williams, harmonica) (5′25)

Side Two:

Blind Lemon Jefferson
1. Wartime Blues (3′07)
2. Weary Dog Blues (2′46)
3. Gone Dead On You Blues (2′50)
4. One Dime Blues (2′50)
5. Lemon’s Cannonball Moan (2′36)
6. Eagle Eyed Mama (2′38)
7. Dynamite Blues (3′00)
8. Big Night Blues (3′12)

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THE IMMORTAL CHARLIE PATTON

The music on this 1962 release, although re-issued by various labels over the years, was the first time these songs had been compiled and made available to a wider public, hitherto only enjoyed by the possessive collector of rare 78’s. Additionally, this was the first release for the Origin Jazz Library founded by Bill Givens, and began what was an amazing output of rarely heard (primarily) African American blues, gospel, jazz and folk music releases (I posted another Origin record on the November 08′ page called “In The Spirit…”). Since Charley Patton was buddies with Son House, and according to him, had encouraged him to record his music (as noted above), it seems fitting to include this one. Most country blues fans are familiar with the idiosyncratic, yet powerful sounds of Charley Patton (aka Elder J.J. Hadley), and his tunes yield an infectious and stirring contribution to the genre, with their anecdotal poetry, stark realism, and untamed spirit. In fact, many consider him the father of the Delta Blues, and Musicologist Robert Palmer considered him among the most important musicians that America produced in the twentieth century. See a nice illustrated history about Patton by R. Crumb here. From the liner notes:

“He was born somewhere in the Delta around 1885. He moved to Clarksdale as a young man, remaining there until 1933 when he moved on to the greener fields of Memphis. According to all reports, he died there in late 34′ or 35′ of tetanus resulting from wounds received in a knife fight. Around Clarksdale, Patton had a reputation for hard drinking, fighting, and “courting”. He avoided church, but was always on hand for socials where his singing and playing made him a favorite. His record sessions came in 29′, 30′, and 31′ in New York and Chicago for Paramount, and in 32′ in Chicago for Vocalion. Most of the persistent rumors about Charlie - that he was a part-time preacher, that he died in a Clarksdale fire, for two - are unconfirmed and seem to be based on the words to his songs… pointing to how closely the Country Blues singers were identified with the lyrics they sang in their peculiarly vivid, realistic, and extemporaneous style.”

Origin Jazz Library, OJL 1, 1962

Side One:

1. High Sheriff (3′18)
2. Green River Blues (3′12)
3. Elder Greene Blues (3′03)
4. Moon Going Down (3′16)
5. Going To Move To Alabama (3′00)
6. I Shall Not Be Moved (3′03)

Side Two:

1. Stone Poney Blues (2′55)
2. Frankie And Albert (3′13)
3. Runnin’ Wild Blues (2′57)
4. Some These Days I’ll Be Gone (3′17)
5. I’m Goin’ Home (3′04)
6. Poor Me (3′02)

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NEGRO FOLK MUSIC OF ALABAMA, VOL. 6: GAME SONGS AND OTHERS, RECORDED IN ALABAMA BY HAROLD COURLANDER

These beautiful a capella songs were recorded in the field in western Alabama during January and February of 1950 by Harold Courlander (assisted by Ruby Pickens Tartt & Emma Courlander), and are a unique document rich in the spirit of African Amercian folk music history. Many recognizable tunes here, the first side is comprised of all game songs, or children’s songs (credited to various schools), while the second side features, in addition to work songs and chaingang songs by a host of singers from the region, a series of seven tunes magically performed by Celina Lewis. This record is one in a series of six LP’s that comprised the Folkways set “Negro Folk Music Of Alabama,” and unfortunately is the only one I possess. The cover art by the great Ronald Clyne (who did the graphics and illustration for most of the Folkways records ever produced) is a shining example of his beautiful and minimalist design sensibilities. From the booklet notes:

“The emphasis in these recordings from Alabama is upon musical content and style rather than performance. Selections have been made with a view to documentation. “Performances” have been sacrificed to make way for what seem to be more traditional folk styles. But the sheer music in many of these recordings is not easily excelled.” - Harold Courlander.

Folkways Library FE 4474, 1955

Side One:

1. Mary Mack (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
2. Bob A Needle (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
3. Watch That Lady (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
4. Old Lady Sally Wants To Jump (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
5. Loop De Loo (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
6. Green Green Rocky Road (Children of Lilly’s Chapel School)
7. Rosie Darling Rosie (Children of Brown’s Chapel School)
8. I Must See (Children of Pilgrim Church School)
9. Bluebird Bluebird (Children of Pilgrim Church School)
10. May Go ‘Round The Needle (Children of East York School)
11. Stooping On The Window (Children of East York School)
12. Charlie Over The Ocean (Children of East York School)

Side Two:

1. Session With Celina Lewis - [a] Catch That Squirrel [b] Sangaree [c] Whoa, Mule, Can’t Get The Saddle On [d] Rosie Gal [e] Bullfrog [f] Kushie Dye Yo [g] If I Had My Way
2. Water On The Wheel (Annie Grace Horn Dodson)
3. Go Pray Ye (Annie Grace Horn Dodson)
4. Captain Holler Hurry (Willie Turner)
5. John Henry (Willie Turner)
6. Going To Have A Talk With The Chief Of Police (Peelee Hatches)
7. Meet Me In The Bottoms (Davie Lee)
8. When The Role Is Called In Heaven (Joe Brown, Harrison Ross and Willie John Strong)
9. I Moaned And I Moaned (Joe Brown, Harrison Ross and Willie John Strong)
10. I’m Standing In A Safety Zone (Rosie N Winston)

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