Leadbelly

Born on this day in 1888, was a bloke who has changed all our live with his music:

Leadbelly (Huddie William Ledbetter), multi-instrumentalist American blues singer, who twice sang himself out of jails, and who helped to inspire the folk and blues revivals of the 1950s and '60s. (Some sources give January 15 and perhaps others as Leadbelly's date of birth.) In Texas, it was a song written for the Governor that won his freedom. In Louisiana, John and Alan Lomax discovered him in Angola Prison and persuaded the Governor to set him free.

Pete Seeger and The Weavers took his (Goodnight) Irene to the top of the charts just six months after the great blues artist died of amyathopic lateral sclerosis on Devcember 6, 1949. Rock Island Line was a hit for Lonnie Donegan and Leadbelly's classic Cottonfields became a major success for the Beach Boys ...