Leadbelly is undoubtedly a powerful songster, a man of great force. You really feel the lyrics as he says them, a journey through his experience.
In Take This Hammer, he way he grunts during pauses feels so authentic and laborious. When I first heard the song, I assumed that storyline was referencing to a slave running away, but I knew that it could not be that straightforward. Upon viewing the first video ( Leadbelly 1976 film), I immediately understood the context just from the sound of the hammer hitting the rocks. Suddenly the grunts made perfect sense and the hammer became more than a tool for work, it became a symbol of his imprisonment.
In the Leadbelly 1976 film, Leadbelly was depicted as a "dangerous" prisoner but with an exceptionally great voice and amazing skill at the guitar. He appeared angry and intimidating, but once he got the guitar in his hands, his disposition changed to such an ecstatic state. Including the flashback really colored Leadbelly into a fierce character - one that appeared to not regret his actions and really live in the present state. While I enjoyed watching those short 13 minutes of the entire movie, I really had to consider why the clip itself was so difficult to find. My first assumption was that it was because the film was about a black captive, but it seems more reasonable to say that someway or another, the film made the viewer slightly uncomfortable by the fact that a great, black man was made to walk with chains on his feet to a room for a recording requested by a white man. All in all, the storyline is amazing, but a bit sad to realize. Then again, all stories, no matter how amazing, tend to have some serious issues that are dealt with.
Watching the other two videos, my sense of who Leadbelly was shifts a bit. In the first video, he was much more of a tangible character. In the Leadbelly "Newsreel" he becomes a nothing more than an actor, another person depicting a part. Regardless if the events were true to the nature of what took place in Leadbelly's life at the time, the representation didn't feel real. And this could have been from the mere fact that the clip was a newsreel, footage most likely directed at a predominantly white audience to capture their attention.
Now the last clip from Leadbelly singing Goodnight Irene was intense. You could really hear the power in his voice - it reverberated and demanded attention. The clip was clearly a setup with Martha sitting elegantly with a glass of champagne(?) in a gloved hand and Leadbelly all suited up and playing the guitar to her. The guitar, with it's old exterior and beat up wood was the greatest juxtaposition of the entire set. Now I am not saying that the setup makes the clip fake, but it really emphasizes who was in control when Leadbelly was asked to play Goodnight Irene for the recording.
Take this hammer, carry it to the captain
Tell him I'm gone
If he asks you was I runnin'
Tell him I was flyin'
If he asks you was I laughin'
Tell him I was cryin'
They want to feed me cornbread and molasses
But I got my pride
So who was Leadbelly. If each source provides a different depiction of Leadbelly, how can we be certain of who he was. I think Take This Hammer is the perfect explanation of who Leadbelly was. The lyrics suggest a strong personality that was very aware of his position and blunt about his opinion. And more reasonably, he resembles very much the hammer he used to break the rocks where he was imprisoned. A hammer itself can break things, but it is also used to piece things together - to create. Leadbelly is just the same; he may be fierce and break things/people, but he is also soft and pieces things back together. He is never one without the other.
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