In November, 1948, someone recorded the great folksinger
at a house party on the University of Minnesota campus in
Minneapolis. Leadbelly is gracious throughout, the gentle
giant. At the end, he even guides a very young girl through a
singalong of his most famous song, “Goodnight Irene,” a hit for
the Weavers in 1950, six months after his death. The Weavers
didn’t include the “morphine” verse, but Leadbelly does in
this performance. The unidentified girl’s voice is small, on
pitch, and piercingly high like a kitten’s. It’s touching to hear
her hang in there so gamely with this man who once killed
another in prison in self-defense, the ex-convict and the little
girl singing in unison. Everything mean and hard in the man’s
life seems to drain away in the immense kindness of their
duet. That little girl must be in her seventies now. Listening,
I wonder how her life went from there. Was she in some way
changed by singing this song, so primal it seems to have always
existed, with its half-mythical author? Does she count it to
her happiness and satisfaction, that bright column beside the
darker column of disappointment and sorrow? Is that woman
still alive? Does she still sing “Goodnight Irene?”