WORKSONGS AND LEADBELLY

WORKSONGS AND LEADBELLY

by Tom Faigin

Although the Civil War officially abolished slavery, new forms of slavery developed that kept blacks poor, disenfranchised and powerless. They became uneducated wage slaves who cleared, ploughed, and harvested southern lands, built levees, and hauled crops to market. Many songs sprang up that helped workers do the hard work of digging, chopping, lifting, hammering, and sailing. These songs were sung a cappella to strong rhythms which helped keep the workers’ minds off the monotony of their endless toil. A leader or head man often sang an improvised line, only to be answered by a choral group of field workers, convict laborers, or stevedores loading or unloading cargo. A good lead singer didn’t always have the best singing voice, but he was experienced at his work and he was comfortable with his co-workers.

As the South became more and more mechanized, folksong scholars like John and Alan Lomax found black worksongs in southern prison camps. These prisons were often called county farms and were known for their brutality, isolation, and inhumanity. Often, blacks were sentenced to these "hell holes" for minor infractions of the law and were unable to regain their freedom before dying from overwork, medical neglect, or cruelty on the part of their oppressors.

Lead singers reshaped old songs into new worksongs which helped the work gangs stay together while they hoed cotton, chopped weeds, broke rocks, or laid railroad track. The singers ranged in age from 18 to 50 and their jobs required coordinated physical effort. Older prisoners often passed on some of the oldest traditional songs to the younger men. "Long John" was of West African origin while "Stewball" has been traced to an 18^th century English ballad. "The Gray Goose" uses words like "master," "missus," and "white house," and is a product of slavery times. Many of the tunes’ lyrics are interchangeable and once again have their antecedents in earlier times. "Take This hammer," a well—known Southern Protest worksong uses more or less the same melody and harmony as "I’m on My Way to Canaan’s Land" and ‘‘Irene, Good Night."

Folkways’ "Negro Prison Camp Worksongs" one of the most famous collections of this type. In it you can hear the call and response patterns between the lead singer and the worksongs. The a cappella contains very little harmony, but a great deal of restrained emotion and vocal power. The melodies are sung "straight" at first, but then as the song progresses, the melodies are embellished more and more elaborately.

Leadbelly was born near Moorings Port, Louisiana, in 1885 near tire Texas—Louisiana border (Texarkana). The area was farm country and young Huddle was taught music by an uncle Terrell Ledbetter. By age 15 Huddle could play the concertina, guitar, and fiddle and was in demand as a performer at dances. Around this time he got a girl pregnant and severe community pressure forced him to leave Louisiana for Dallas, Texas.

In Dallas he hooked up with the brilliant singer and guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson. They teamed up and played the streets of Dallas arid Fort Worth and here Huddie first began to play the 12—string guitar which became his main instrument from then on.

In 1917 he killed a man in a fight over a girl (self defense he would maintain for the rest of his life) and was sentenced to 30 years in tire state penitentiary at Huntsville, Alabama. Although he made one attempt to escape, overpowering a guard in the process, he subsequently cooled down and became part of the everyday prison workforce. It was at this time he picked up the name "Leadbelly" due to his strength and endurance as a field worker. He also continued with his music in Huntsville, eventually sang for Governor Pat Neff during one of Neff’s prison inspection tours and on January 15, 1925, was pardoned when Neff left office. (He had made this a promise.) Leadbelly was a free man.

Five years later in Louisiana, Leadbelly once again found himself arrested, tried, and convicted of assault with intent to murder and was sentenced from six to ten years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary of Angola, infamous for cruelty even to this day. At Angola he became the camp musician and in 1934 he was pardoned by Governor O.K. Allen as a result of a song which he composed pleading for a pardon. The song was recorded by folklorist John A. Lomax who subsequently took it to Allen and pleaded Leadbelly’s case.

For the next couple of years Leadbelly ‘traveled with John Lomax and his son Alan, giving a number of concerts at colleges and universities where he electrified academic audiences with his powerful voice and 12-string guitar playing. In 1935 he married Martha Promise whom he had known since she was a little girl. They went to Louisiana, then to New York City in 1937 to stay for good. From this time on, Leadbelly always attempted to make his living as an artist in a day when folk music was not very popular. He performed at parties, concerts, radio programs, and left-wing political rallies. He also recorded for many different labels. However, he never saw any commercial success during his lifetime. Shortly after his death on December 6, 1949, from a muscular deteriorating disease that could not be halted, several of his songs became popular hits: "Goodnight, Irene," "Cotton Fields," "Rock Island Line," and "The Midnight Special."

Huddie Ledbetter lived a full 65 years. His life reads like an adventure story, the wanderings of a black Ulysses. Although many of his songs were not original, they are his unmistakable creative energy and inventiveness. He was truly a great folk artist who specialized in worksongs, blues and dance songs, all coming out of black Southern musical traditions, but in particular the Southern prison environment. We are indebted to Leadbelly for his great tunes which he learned from others, embellished with his powerful Louisiana tenor voice and passed on to folk, rock, and country singers. "Cotton Fields," "Irene, Goodnight," "The Midnight Special," "Take This Hammer," "The Rock Island Line," and "Go Down Old Hannah" are now all a part of our heritage.

Tom Faigin has taught guitar, ban]o, and mandolin to private students since 1960 while teaching guitar classes at UCLA, CSULA, CSUN, and many other colleges, schools, and organizations. Tom has performed on radio, TV, given concerts, and lectured on folk music at California State University at Los Angeles. Currently, Tom is teaching English and ESL at Birmingham High School and actively uses folksongs and guitar music to motivate his students.