Modest Conquest

Leadbelly


I served my mormon mission in Mississippi and ever since then I've been in love with blues and folk music. One of my favorite areas was in the Delta where a lot of incredible musicians got their start.

One of my favorite folk artists is Leadbelly. His story is quite interesting. If you ever care to look into his life a little more you'll find all sorts of neat things about one of folk music's greatest legends. Huddie William Ledbetter who later became known as Leadbelly was discovered at the Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana by John Lomax and his 18 year old son Alan Lomax. What started as a simple documentation of negro prison songs by Lomax ended up being a much larger movement to get his music in the limelight. The rest is history. Here are a few rare videos that give you a better idea of who Leadbelly is. You'll hear me talk about Alan Lomax and lifelong journey to document folk music around the world. If you look for it you can see a lot of popular culture references to Leadbelly. I'll post more on that too.

The first video was a recreation that was produced by Time Magazine back in 1935. Awesome.