A key figure in the history of American music, Huddie Ledbetter was one of the
great voices of the folk tradition, telling stories of cotton picking, slavery
and the travails of the South and leaving a lasting influence on the likes of
Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Kurt Cobain. Born on a plantation in Louisiana
in 1888, he was taught guitar and accordion by his uncle at an early age, but
became a social outcast when he fathered two children by the time he was 16 and
set out on his own as a wandering minstrel and farm hand. Bluesman Blind Lemon
Jefferson became a travelling par...