Leadbelly - Easy Rider

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KQB7QK06

I've got the 'Private Party' recording from 1948 on back-order, and when I have it, so will you, but in the meantime, here's a nice little Leadbelly primer.

'Bourgeois Blues' is on here, a perfect mix of melody and politics, intelligence and bile. Presumably this song has been covered to death, although I'm all the happier for never having heard a version by anyone else.

Another interesting song is 'In the Pines'. A lot of people interpret this as a song about infidelity. But in it's abbreviated form, as sung by Leadbelly and later Kurt Cobain, it seems to be a wife's story, sat up through dawn waiting for her husband, unaware that he lays dead on the rail tracks. Interesting to see how ommission is part of growth in the oral tradition.

1. Fannin Street
2. I've A Pretty Flowers
3. Easy Rider
4. Bull Cow
5. DeKalb Blues
6. New York City
7. Mother's Blues
8. Tell Me Baby
9. Sweet Mary Blues
10. Bourgeois Blues
11. My Friend Blind Lemon
12. Good Morning Blues
13. Gallis Pole
14. Outskirts Of Town
15. Grasshoppers In My Pillow
16. Scottsboro Blues
17. Sail On Little Girl, Sail On
18. Don't You Love Your Daddy No More
19. Where Did You Sleep Last Night
20. How Long
21. Looky Looky Yonder