Leadbelly

Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, became one of the most famous African American folk singers in American history. Born in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, near Shreveport, he grew up on a small farm owned by his sharecropping parents. He left home as a young man, and by 1908 was living in East Texas, where he married his first wife, Aletta Henderson. In late 1910, the couple moved to Dallas, and around 1912 he met Blind Lemon Jefferson in Deep Ellum, with whom he worked and traveled until 1917, when he was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man in a fight over a woman. He was pardoned in 1923 by the Governor of Texas after he improvised a song for him, called "Governor's Neff Blues," about his wife and family. He moved back to Louisiana, where he was later arrested again. Folklorist John Lomax found him at Angola State Prison and pleaded with the Governor of Louisiana for his release. In the late 1930s and 1940s, he toured college campuses and participated in labor rallies and festivals.

Dallas, Texas · United States