ANALYSIS/OPINION:
George Harrison famously said, “No Lead Belly, no Beatles.”
Musicians Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Lucinda Williams, Buddy Miller, Valerie June and others came together Saturday night to prove that without Lead Belly, there would be no country music.
The audience enthusiastically responded to the performances of blues-rock classics. When Josh White Jr. — the only performer of the evening who personally knew Lead Belly, who performed with his father — sang “House of the Rising Sun,” an almost palatable nostalgia radiated through the audience. As Mr. White and the Billy Hector Band, which accompanied him, played the last notes, the near-capacity crowd was on its feet for the evening’s first and heartiest standing ovation.
The majority of songs performed were a gorgeous mix of country blues, including “Out on the Western Plains” by Miss Krauss and Mr. Plant and “Silver City Bound” by Alvin Youngblood Hart.
As host of the “Lead Belly at 125: A Tribute to an American Songster” event, former Carolina Chocolate Drops member Dom Flemons extolled the virtues of Lead Belly, whose music was made popular thanks to major supporters including Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.
Lead Belly’s classics include “Goodnight Irene,” “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” and “Midnight Special.” Anyone who questions whether his music is truly related to folk and country need only listen to some of his most powerful songs that lament segregation and racism.
Louisiana native Lucinda Williams, long lauded as America’s premier contemporary songwriter, performed “Bourgeois Blues.”
The true genius is that Lead Belly’s mix of storytelling and musical prowess, including on the 12-string guitar, can change shape easily into blues, country, rock, pop, folk and skiffle, which is a mix of jazz, blues, folk and roots especially popular in England.
“This was one man with a guitar,” Mr. Flemons said as a portrait of Lead Belly stared down from the back of the stage. “And here we are 125 years later, celebrating him.”
The tribute was made possible through a collaboration between the Kennedy Center and the Grammy Museum.
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