The Lead Belly Foundation is a non profit organization founded by Tiny Robinson, niece of Huddie Ledbetter to preserve and promote the musical legacy of the “King of the 12-string guitar’.
Our Mission
The mission of the Lead Belly foundation is to preserve and promote the historical legacy of Huddie Ledbetter to the world and support young musicians through educational programs and sponsorship.
Our Vision
We are committed to educate and promote the creative life of Huddie Ledbeter through museum exhibitions, maintaining the Lead belly archives, sponsoring music education to children and young adults, and showcasing public programs to national and global audiences.
Foundation Values
•
Excellence in
education
•
Support school programs
•
Volunteer service to meet
educational needs
for students
•
Accountability for results
•
Preserve musical heritage
Documentary Trailer
To assure support and long term access to Huddie
“Lead Belly” Ledbetter’s music collections,
and other shared memories.
To sponsor music workshops, music institutes, summer camps and
concerts in which the music of Lead Belly, his contemporaries,
and successors will be performing to continue to teach and influence
Lead Belly’s style in blues and folk music.
Continual enhancement and maintenance of Lead Belly’s
grave in Mooringsport, Louisiana which has been a national shrine
for music lovers both in the United States and abroad.
To provide music scholarships to individual school-age students
who desire to study a musical instrument for the purpose of
enriching their lives academically, recreationally and socially.
We will provide continual support to students who aspire to
further their musical talents by attending college and create
mentor relationships for them to enter into the career world
successfully.
To provide support to school music programs in order to enhance
academic success, and increase the understanding and enjoyment
of music.
To establish a museum to exhibit Lead Belly archives and memorbilia
to further expose the many facets of Huddie Ledbetter.
MAKE A DONATION TO THE
FOUNDATION HERE
Famous
Quotes
Alex Haley, author of “Roots”
says
“Lead Belly is kind of the Mount
Everest of Blues Singer.”
Paul
Robeson wrote
“Our American Negro folk songs
spran directly out of our lives-our working lives- like
John Henry ballards and countless others so superbly sung
by Lead Belly.”
Bob Dylan has admitted
"A debt to Lead Belly”
Janis Joplin said
‘It was Lead Belly first”
Keith Richards (Rolling Stone) tries
to
“Keep rolling, to grow
up the art of rock n’ roll, to age with the weather-beaten
diginity of his mentors, the great, hard living bluesmen
like Lead Belly.”
Roy Orbinson saw himself as an
“allround singer like Lead Belly who sang all kinds
of material.”
Van Morrison said
” Lead Belly was
not an influence, he was the influence. If it wasn’t
for him, I may never have been here. I don’t think
he’s really dead. A lot of people’s bodies die
but I don’t think their spirits die with them.”
Kurt Cobain
”idolizes blues legend, Huddie
Ledbetter
Josh White in recalling Lead Belly,
”Had enormous respect for the
gaint of folk song.”
Alan Lomax wrote that Lead
Belly
”Sang the blues
wonderfully,but he was much bigger than that. He encompassed
the whole black era, from square dance calls to the blues
of the 30’s and 40’s”
Robert Plant says
“He was one of the main movers
when I was a kid.”
Oscar Brand says
“There are very few people left
alive who knew Lead Belly as a person. Like Woody, he was
an icon. But I can’t help but think of him as a friend.”
Odetta says
“Lead Belly’s music still
strikes a chord today, because it addresses our human condition.”
Lead
Belly