Huddie Ledbetter (1885?-1949), "the king of the twelve string guitar," is an American folk music hero: his influence is immeasurable in songs such as "Goodnight Irene," "Midnight Special," "Rock Island Line," "Cotton Fields at Home." But he learned the blues the hard way-breaking rocks and picking cotton-and if there is something mythic about his journey from the swamplands of Louisiana to the city, from cotton fields to chain gangs, it was his art that made it extraordinary. Director Gordon Parks has painted a portrait of the times to show how Leadbelly's music grew out of the black experience in the first half of this century; he has noted that Leadbelly's life "had actually been far more brutal than we could show it" in this 1976 biographical film. We meet Leadbelly in a Louisiana prison in 1933, serving a lengthy sentence that is not his first. Musicologist John Lomax is recording his songs and his story for the Library of Congress. It may be the beginning of Leadbelly's fame, but it is not the beginning of his music, nor is it the end of his troubles. His story, told in flashback, is reenacted by Roger E. Mosley, with vocals by HiTide Harris (and backup by Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry and others); Art Evans portrays his musician-cohort Blind Lemon Jefferson in a film that has retained a cult following among lovers of the legendary blues singer. Gordon Parks, Life photographer and novelist, also directed the autobiographical film The Learning Tree (1969) and Shaft (1971).