Leadbelly

Leadbelly isn't a great movie, but it does a good job of conveying a sense of the man, and the lead performance is very strong.

Director Parks doesn't quite carry off the sense of how alien a world the old segregated South was, and the movie has a bit too much of a this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened quality to it, rather than shaping Leadbelly's story to make a great movie.

But overall the movie is engaging, entertaining, and educational, and you get a sense of why he was such an influence on today's music. It's an enormous shame that the Weavers never credited him in "Wasn't that a time."

Not only was this one of the most insightful biographical films I have ever seen, it was also a most poignant and revealing documentation of turn of the century social attitudes. This is truly a great film that I especially recommend to blues and rock and roll afficiandoes. Leadbelly in my opinion played a major part in the history of music and this movie plays a significant part towards documenting his story.

Just watched this musical biography directed by Gordon Parks on Netflix Streaming. Having read the bio on Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter on Wikipedia, I knew some characters and events were made up or exaggerated for dramatic proposes but knowing that, I highly enjoyed this movie and Roger E. Mosley's performance as the title character even though someone else did the singing. Great period atmosphere throughout. Oh, and I also recognized some songs like "Rock Island Line" and "Cotton Fields at Home" as those taught to me when I was in elementary school. Also wanted to cite fine supporting turns by Madge Sinclair as the brothel madam Miss Eula and Art Evans as fellow musician Blind Lemon Jefferson. So on that note, I highly recommend Leadbelly.

If all you knew of Roger E. Mosley was as Tom Selleck's chopper pilot sidekick, T. C., on '80s TV's "Magnum, P. I.," then it may come as a surprise how good he is playing the title role in this fictionalized story of the legendary bluesman Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Leadbelly, directed by Gordon Parks. Covering a span of more than 20 years, from his 20s to 40s, the master songwriter and guitarist hones his craft while serving prison sentences slaving away on Southern chain gangs. He's even pardoned by an outgoing Governor, largely because of his popular musicianship, but as he tries to make his way back to his ancestral home, he is still not able to be completely free of the painful chains that have bound him. Some fine acting by several of the leads, and Mosley adds much of his own vocals (with the only slightly less legendary Brownie McGhee, who had played with Leadbelly in the 1940s, adding guitar), but it's equally worth noting that most Southern whites are depicted as racist, one-dimensional morons (not that that's unfair, necessarily; it's not *their* story, and therefore they are only notable for their incessant and relentless cruelty). I couldn't decide between 7 or 8 stars out of 10, and the lower number reflects the failings of the studio more than the film. (Hollywood still could barely conceive of a serious dramatic movie cast populated predominantly with people of color, but equally appealing to mostly a Caucasian moviegoing audience, despite it having witnessed the success of "Sounder" just 2-3 years earlier.) Oh well; at least, in a post Marvel's "Black Panther" world, that thinking no longer predominates.

This dramatization of the life of Leadbelly is greatly helped by having a SECOND great dalesman in the story, as his road buddy for a time, the historic recording artist BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON, played here by a sighted actor-musician, ART EVANS, in his first major role. Art has gone on to appear in a total of 85 roles in TV and the movies, according to his listing on IMDb (q.v.). Art, why don't you give IMDb a photo? Blind Lemon was a star in his day, recording "Please See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and "Matchbox Blues" among others in the late Nineteen Twenties, but died, homeless, in Chicago, one winter in the early Thirties. This movie is televised occasionally -- watch for it -- HINT: try Black History Month, February!