DVD Review: Lead Belly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll

DVD Release Date: April 11, 2025
Price: DVD $14.23
Studio: Pop Twist/MVD

Curt Hahn’s authorized 2022 biographical documentary on Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, Lead Belly: The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll takes a deep dive into the remarkable musical life and times of the gifted Amerian folk and blues singer/guitarist who became one of the more influential figures in 20^th-century music.

Born in Morgansport, Louisiana in the late 19^th Century (experts guess 1888 though it’s a disputed date), Lead Belly’s music ultimately influenced everyone from Woody Guthrie to Janis Joplin to Kurt Cobain to The Beatles, among others. (George Harrison was once quoted as saying, “No Lead Belly, no Beatles.”)

The composer of such standards as “The Midnight Special” and “Goodnight, Irene,” Lead Belly is seen here in a bunch of stills and some rare video footage of live performance. Equally compelling are the collection of interviews and testimonials with such Lead Belly enthusiasats as BB King, Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte, along with some fascinating tales about how the man’s colorful life, which found him going to jail twice on murder charges (in Texas and Louisiana) and, in both cases, managing to sing his way out of two extended prison sentences.

Though he attained a certain level of fame, there wasn’t much fortune accompanying it, so had to make do with the growing reputation that came along with his recordings and live appearances, particularly those during New York’s burgeoning folk scene in the Fifties. He ultimately fell ill during his first tour of Europe in 1949 and died later that year from ALS, decades before being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.