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Album Details

• Artist: Leadbelly
• Album: King of the 12-String Guitar
• Label: Columbia / Legacy
• Year of Release: 1991
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-03-29

Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Leadbelly, was one of the first blues musician to gain recognition with a white audience. Unfortunately, his fame came shortly after his death. Two of his biggest songs, "Goodnight Irene" and "Cotton Fields", ended up in some form or another atop the Billboard charts and sold more than one million copies. He was born in 1888 and died in 1949. He spent many years in jail over the killing of a man (it was a fight over a woman) and upon composing a song for the Governor, pleading to be pardoned he was released in 1934. On this collection by Legacy, they have attempted to gather his main songs, somehow forgetting "Goodnight Irene" and "Cotton Fields", and some alternate takes as well as some rare issued 78's. The recording isn't always as good as you would have liked but for the most part it just adds to the authenticity of the tracks. This is one of the best collections of Huddie Ledbetter to date.

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