“I’ll kiss you in my dreams.” Every once in a while we have to have a Huddie Ledbetter Memorial Post, and this is one with excellent, heretofore unseen pictures. Leadbelly’s lyrics, as we know, are very nineteenth century. But the world described apparently lived through the 1960s at least, and I know a man from Shreveport who has Leadbelly’s exact accent and much of his voice.
“Sometimes I lives in the country / Sometimes I lives in town.” “I asked your mother for you (what she tellin you?) / She said you was too young (just sixteen years old!). / I wish I’d never seen your face / I’m sorry you ever was born.” “Stop ramblin / Stop gamblin / Quit staying out late at night. / Go home to your wife and your family / Sit down by the fireside bright.” Irene, I take it, is the town girl?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Here’s another bluesy song from Australia:
http://www.hotlyrics.net/lyrics/C/Cold_Chisel/Good_Bye_Astrid.html
I heard him sing when I was a little kid. Imagine that!
Gotcha, J! H – where did you see him? My father saw
him (or knew people who did) in living rooms in Berkeley. He played the MLA Convention in 1935!
I don’t remember anything but that my mother told me I’d seen him. However, his voice is in my mind. He would bring all the little children up to sit in the front, she said.
Yes – somehow his voice burned its way into my mind as a child, too. I also heard he would bring all the little children up to sit in the front!