![]() I had no idea that I would be building my own career based on this music but when the opportunity came for me to form the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the notions laid out by Lead Belly helped inform the way I played guitar in the group. The Elektra Set was structured by song types and I wore down the section called “Square Dances, Sooky Jumps, Reels” where Lead Belly plays several dance tunes interspersed with his sketches of what Square Dances were like when he was growing up. I could use Lead Belly’s drive and attack to form a sound of my own as I approached material. That gave me a template to work with for black vernacular music. I stumbled across a three record set called “Leadbelly: The Library of Congress Recordings” on Elektra Records, compiled by the great archivist Lawrence Cohn, and I was on my way. I began to collect Lead Belly recordings wherever I could find them and there were a lot. With the fairly new technology of the tape recorder, Ramsey could catch Lead Belly with higher fidelity recording and he could just “let the tape run” creating an experience that was also different from the earlier Library of Congress recordings made by John and Alan Lomax who had to work within the confines of disc recording as well. Ramsey wanted to present Lead Belly in a way that the more sterile studio recordings couldn’t. later, I just loved the notion behind the recordings. When I read the liner notes by Frederic Ramsey, Jr. I liked that Lead Belly played a variety of songs and that he had some “weird” songs like the “Dog Latin Song” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes.” I was blown away by the fact that the first disc didn’t even have Lead Belly playing guitar. As a young black man interested in folk music, I was drawn to that, as well. ![]() I liked to hear the fellow talk and hear the way he himself described his music. The older Southern accent and the slower manner of being drew me in. Though my grandfather was a pastor, a God-fearing man, I felt a connection to Lead Belly through that. His manner of speaking also reminded me of my grandfather who grew up on a farm in Pineland, TX, which is not very far from where Lead Belly grew up in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. It wasn’t just the songs but it was the talking-it was the casual nature of Lead Belly that drew me in. It features a portrait of a somber looking Lead Belly, eyes closed, powerful. Searching in the collection I found an album in two parts called Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. Being in an era before the internet ruled everyone’s lives, there was no easy instruction book for listening to LPs and vinyl wasn’t a valid means to listen or consume music for most people around me except DJs, and they didn’t really play much folk music. I had purchased a turntable that I had hooked up to two guitar amps for maximum stereo sound. I went to NAU and not soon after enrolling I found myself in Cline Library delving deep into its LP collection. I enjoyed the album but it would be a few years before I would find the album that would really set me off on a full on fanatical journey to Lead Belly’s repertoire. It was an open jam with Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry and Lead Belly singing “We Shall Be Free” and a variety of other songs. I found an album called Lead Belly Sings Folk Songs (on Folkways Records, now owned by the Smithsonian), which I feel may have been the album Dylan referenced in the song. That’s the only way to understand how I made the music I made, if I even made it…” If you really want to sound like me, you have to delve deep and listen to the things I listened to when I was coming up. “No No No,” says Bob Dylan when asked if he would suggest younger musicians follow his path to sound like him. I even read an interview with Bob Dylan that began something like this: The first time I heard the name Lead Belly was in Bob Dylan’s song “Song To Woody” where he mentions “Cisco, Sonny and Lead Belly too.” Being a studious individual, I looked up the names of these influences on a musician who had recently become my own influence. It was around 2001-I had been playing guitar and harmonica for about three years mostly focusing on Bob Dylan, The Beatles and early ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll. When I look deep down and think about the significance of the event on the personal level, I am brought back to my own 19-year-old self in Phoenix, Arizona settling into college at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. I have to say that the concert at the Kennedy Center celebrating the 125 th birthday of Lead Belly was a life-changing experience for me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |