He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, Jack Johnson, the Scottsboro Boys and Howard Hughes.

By the 1910 census of Harrison County, Texas, "Hudy Ledbetter" was living next door to his parents in a separate household with his first wife, Aletha "Lethe" Henderson.

By his early twenties, having fathered at least two children, Ledbetter left home to make his living as a guitarist and occasional laborer.

In September, needing regular work to satisfy parole, he asked John Lomax to take him on as a paid driver.

[14][page needed] In December 1934, Lead Belly participated in a "smoker" (group sing) at a Modern Language Association meeting at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where the senior Lomax had a prior lecture engagement.

On New Year's Day, 1935, the pair arrived in New York City, where Lomax was scheduled to meet with his publisher, Macmillan, about a new collection of folk songs.

ARC decided to simultaneously release these songs on six different labels they owned: Banner, Melotone, Oriole, Perfect, Romeo, and Paramount.

Lomax interviewed Ledbetter about his life for their forthcoming book, Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly (1936).

In March 1935, Lead Belly accompanied John Lomax on a previously scheduled two-week lecture tour of colleges and universities in the Northeast, culminating at Harvard.

He also gave Martha the money her husband had earned during three months of performing, but in installments, on the pretext that Lead Belly would spend it all on drinking if he was given a lump sum.

From Louisiana, Lead Belly successfully sued Lomax for both the full amount of his earnings and release from his management contract.

Life magazine ran a three-page article titled "Lead Belly: Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel" in its issue of April 19, 1937.

He developed his own style of singing and explaining his repertoire in the context of Southern black culture, having learned from his participation in Lomax's college lectures.

After gaining release, Lead Belly appeared as a regular on Lomax and Nicholas Ray's groundbreaking CBS radio show Back Where I Come From, broadcast nationwide.

He was buried in the Shiloh Baptist Church cemetery, in Mooringsport, Louisiana, 8 miles (13 km) west of Blanchard, in Caddo Parish.

In January 1918, he was imprisoned at the Imperial Farm (now Central Unit)[22] in Sugar Land, Texas, after being convicted of killing a relative, Will Stafford, in a fight over a woman.

[17] In 1925, he was pardoned and released after writing a song to Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff seeking his freedom, having served the minimum seven years of a 7-to-35-year sentence.

It was a testament to his persuasive powers, as Neff had run for governor on a pledge not to issue pardons (most Southern judicial systems had no provision for approving parole from prison).

[10]: 85 In 1930, Ledbetter was sentenced to Louisiana State Penitentiary (nicknamed "Angola") after a summary trial for attempted homicide for stabbing a man in a fight.

[17] Another theory is that the name refers to his ability to drink moonshine, the homemade liquor that Southern farmers, black and white, made to supplement their incomes.

In 1976, a biopic titled Leadbelly was released, directed by Gordon Parks and featuring Roger E. Mosley as Lead Belly.

[32] Cobain refers to his attempt to convince David Geffen to purchase Lead Belly's guitar for him in an interval before the song is played.

Lonnie Donegan's recording of "Rock Island Line", released as a single in late 1955, signaled the start of the skiffle craze.

[37] Indian singer Bhupen Hazarika—who was, in general, influenced by spirituals during his days as a student in the US—transcreated Lead Belly's singing of "We're in the Same Boat Brother" [38] into the Assamese language as "Ami ekekhon nawore zatri" (আমি একেখন নাৱৰে যাত্ৰী).

[41] In 2001 English-Canadian blues singer Long John Baldry released his final studio album, Remembering Leadbelly.

The Kennedy Center, in collaboration with the Grammy Museum held Lead Belly at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster, a musical event featuring Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, and Buddy Miller with Viktor Krauss as headliners and Dom Flemons as host, with special appearances by Lucinda Williams, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Billy Hector, Valerie June, Shannon McNally, Josh White Jr., and Dan Zanes, among others.

[44] In London, England, the Royal Albert Hall held Lead Belly Fest, a musical event featuring Van Morrison, Eric Burdon, Jools Holland, Billy Bragg, Paul Jones, and more.

Initially played when performing with Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893–1929) in and around Dallas, Texas, the song is about champion African-American boxer Jack Johnson's being denied passage on the Titanic.

[48] In possibly the earliest audio recording of the phrase, Lead Belly urged Black listeners to "stay woke" in the spoken afterword to a 1938 recording of his song "Scottsboro Boys", which tells the story of nine Black teenagers and young men falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama in 1931.

When the Boys Were on the Western Plain 5130-1 John Hardy 5133 In New Orleans 5132 Pretty Flowers in Your Back Yard 5131 Pigmeat Grasshopers in My Pillow