McCartney Times

George Harrison once remarked, “No Lead Belly, No Beatles,”. This was not hyperbole. Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (1986) and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (1988), he’s influenced generations of musicians and WNYC can proudly claim it gave him a seat in front of our microphone. Huddie Ledbetter, better known as ‘Leadbelly,’ and ‘Lead Belly'[1], was a virtuoso of the twelve-string guitar and renowned folksinger and bluesman who had no less than four weekly programs on WNYC between 1940 and 1948. I suspect that none of the shows ran for more than five months at a time because of the demands for gigs outside of the station and ongoing record studio sessions. The folk and blues legend also appeared frequently in the WNYC studios performing for other station programs like Folk Songs for the Seven Million, the annual February WNYC American Music Festival folk, jazz, and swing segments, the Metropolitan Revue with Ralph Berton and later, Art Hodes, as well as Oscar Brand’s Folksong Festival.

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Source: The ‘King of the Twelve-String Guitar’ is a WNYC Regular Through the 1940s | NYPR Archives & Preservation | WNYC