Leadbelly

She sang Leadbelly’s “Midnight Blues” and the spiritual “Down by the Riverside.”

But for three carol singers standing outside Leadbelly’s, a bar in south London, there was a more immediate problem: a lack of tenors.

He wrote one of his first plays to Leadbelly’s “Ol’ Riley.”

At university, he wrote an essay about artists such as Leadbelly and Ray Charles who blurred the artificial distinction between black and white music.

Seeger sang his famous “If I Had A Hammer,” but also songs from artists ranging from Woody Guthrie to Leadbelly.