Leadbelly popularized it.  Nirvana re-popularized it.  Great song.  Check out our youtube channel, SafeBoatingify.  We are desperately in need of your validation.  More on our healthy admiration for  Leadbelly after the jump.

Leadbelly was kind of a bad ass.  Here we go:

Here’s the thing about Leadbelly:  He was one of the only rural folk musicians born pre-20th century to survive long enough to make it onto film.   This one’s from the 40’s.  And not from any lack of trying.  He served 4 different jail sentences, one for murder.  He escaped once and was pardoned twice, ostensibly because his music moved the governors of Texas and Louisiana so greatly that they set him free, though it seems he had pretty good behavior in the joint.  His last sentence was at the age of 51 for stabbing a man in Manhattan.  You can’t make this shit up.

He apparently got through life without crossing anyone so much they poisoned him, like Robert Johnson.  He didn’t die in a snowstorm like Blind Lemon.  He didn’t get run over by a street car like Blind Blake.  Hell, he didn’t even drink himself to death.  He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and died at the age of 61.  Pretty damn good for an American musician.  Here’s one more for the road.