Signed book: Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly. First edition. NY: The Macmillan Company, 1936. Clothbound hardcover, 7.5 x 9.5, 242 pages. Signed on the title page in black, "Huddie Ledbetter," as well as in blue ink by the author, "Yours sincerely, John A. Lomax." Collector's notation to first free end page. In very good to fine condition, with slight scattered toning to opening pages, including the signed page (restricted to the bottom edge, in no way affecting the bold signature); boards and pastedowns feature some faint water damage and creasing. Father-and-son folklorists John and Alan Lomax discovered Ledbetter at Louisiana's Angola Prison Farm in the summer of 1933. They recorded the 12-string guitarist—then serving a four-year sentence for attempted homicide—and, deeply impressed, they returned a year later with even better equipment to record hundreds of his songs. Upon his release in 1934, Ledbetter helped the Lomaxes with their folk song collecting around the South, and then later assisted them with recording songs and compiling interviews for their forthcoming book, Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly. Autographic material from Leadbelly remains extremely scarce.
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