Drama
Leadbelly
You can't bury a black legend like Leadbelly!
The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.
Trailer
Top Cast
Roger E. Mosley
Huddie Ledbetter
James Brodhead
John Lomax
John McDonald
Tom Pruitt
Leonard Wrentz
Guard
Ernie Hudson
Archie
Dana Manno
Margaret Judd
William Wintersole
Sheriff Gibbons
Paul Benjamin
Wes Ledbetter
Directed by
Gordon Parks
Production
Reviews
JPRetana
6/16/2026
Leadbelly (1976) opens with Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter (Roger E. Mosley) as an old man in prison. By “old” I mean they dyed Mosley’s hair and eyebrows gray, and even “dyed” might be an overstatement. Ledbetter is shirtless when we first meet him, so we can see he’s actually a strapping middle-age man. Perhaps that stuff on his hair is just dust from breaking rocks all day. Ethnomusicologists John and Alan Lomax come to record Ledbetter playing guitar and singing for the Library of Congress. Ledbetter proceeds to narrate the film in a long flashback. Dude, they asked you for a song, not your lifestory. Also, it may not be a good idea to go on literal record about all the times you broke the law and got away with it. Maybe he figured, “What the hell? I’m already in prison.” What he sho
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