Leadbelly - Easy Rider

Monday, May 30, 2011

Huddie William Ledbetter (January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949) was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced.
He is best known as Lead Belly. Though many releases list him as "Leadbelly", he himself spelled it "Lead Belly". This is also the usage on his tombstone, as well as of the Lead Belly Foundation.

Although Lead Belly most commonly played the twelve-string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, concertina, and accordion. In some of his recordings, such as in one of his versions of the folk ballad "John Hardy", he performs on the accordion instead of the guitar. In other recordings he just sings while clapping his hands or stomping his foot.

The topics of Lead Belly's music covered a wide range of subjects, including gospel songs; blues songs about women, liquor and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs concerning the newsmakers of the day, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Jean Harlow, the Scottsboro Boys, and Howard Hughes.

"See See Rider", also known as "C.C. Rider" or "See See Rider Blues" or "Easy Rider" is a popular American 12-bar blues" song. It was first recorded by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey in 1924, and since then has been recorded by many other artists.

The song uses mostly traditional blues lyrics to tell the story of an unfaithful lover, commonly called easy riders: "See See rider, see what you have done", making a play on the word see and the sound of easy.

The term "See See Rider" is usually taken as synonymous with "easy rider". In particular, in blues songs it often refers to a woman who had liberal sexual views, had been married more than once, or was skilled at sex. Although Ma Rainey's version seems on the face of it to refer to "See See Rider" as a man, one theory is that the term refers to a prostitute, and in the lyric "You made me love you, now your man done come", "your man" refers to the woman's pimp. So, rather than being directed to a male "easy rider", the song is in fact an admonition to a prostitute to give up her evil ways.