The Lead Belly Guitar: A Curiously Unique and Fascinating Instrument
By: Ivan Munoz
The Man, The Myth, The ‘Lead-gend’
Huddie Leadbetter, better known as Lead Belly was a Victor Artist known for his distinctive style of blues that contained searing vocals, potent poetic lyricism, and masterful guitar stylings. While his most well known and widely recognized song is Midnight Special, many of his other songs (Goodnight Irene, Where Did You Sleep Last Night, and The Boll Weevil Song to name a few...) were just as remarkable tackling a large breadth of topics such as race, current events, prison, liquor, and love & loss, and such genres as blues, gospel, folk, and country. Lead Belly's compositions have been historically reinterpreted by many artists who came after him, demonstrating his writing prowess and timeless craftsmanship of song.
Leadbelly’s original guitar on display at The National Museum of African American History & Culture.
Leadbelly was a proficient multi instrumentalist, however his primary instrument was the guitar; most notably his 12-String guitar. This is a curious instrument for many reasons. It is a jumbo-bodied flat-top acoustic guitar with a tailpiece and bridge glued to the top. The presence of both a glued bridge and tailpiece is a very unique mixture of features that comes with it’s own special sound. Furthermore, most acoustic guitar's have a scale length ranging from 24.75" to 25.5". A shorter scale length is likely to have much less string tension and as a result the more flexible strings sound less snappy and have a larger bass response; whereas a longer scale length will have the opposite effect.
Lead Belly's guitar, a 1920's Stella Auditorium (manufactured by Oscar Schmidt), was an instrument of a very long scale measuring in at 26.5". However, unlike a traditional guitar strung E to E, this was strung B to B (or C to C, or C# to C# depending on the tuning of the song), making the tones of this guitar much lower than what is considered normal and closer to that of a bass.
A figure demonstrating the internal differences between these styles of guitar bracing
Another key aspect of this guitar’s build that contributes to its unique tone is its ladder bracing. As opposed to the traditional X-bracing that you’d see on a Martin Acoustic, this bracing is sturdier and in turn produces less sustain and results in a darker (not as bright), chunkier, more rhythmic sound. Another example of a ladder-braced guitar is the original Gibson J-160e heard on many Beatle recordings.
All of these combined tonal characteristics of the long-scale acoustic with a tailpiece, low tuned octave-pairs of a 12 string with ladder-bracing led to an incredibly unique sound that was as distinctive as Lead Belly's haunting melodies and sultry tunes. A heavy tone with a weight like lead, how fitting for this particular artist. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that this single instrument is more significant to rock and roll than any of Keith Richards’ guitars. Without Lead Belly there would be no rock and roll. George Harrison, a 12-string legend in his own right, once said “No Lead Belly, No Beatles”.
In fact, all of us at Victor aren’t the only ones fascinated by this particular guitar. One man, Wisconsin based luthier Todd Cambio, has taken to building hand-crafted exacting replicas of these American guitars of the 1920’s. Fraulini Guitar Co. seeks to recreate the instruments that formed the Great American Songbook, many of which can be heard on early Victor Records. He makes most parts by hand and in-house even going so far as to use period correct glues, finishes and build techniques. His ‘Francesca’ model is an exact recreation of Lead Belly’s Stella 12-String. On Fraulini’s website in regards to craftsmanship, he states:
“While many luthiers are about embracing advances in technology, I'm about reviving traditional techniques that have been lost to modern generations and becoming effective and efficient at using those techniques.”
Todd Cambio, Fraulini Guitar Co.
How cool is that! Luthiery is an admired and respected art form that I’m glad to see being carried on by the next generation of builders who hold the work of those who came before them with such a reverence that they carry the torch and can continue the craft of making amazing instruments that will continue to make music for generations upon generations.
So what’s it sound like? Here is a video of someone playing a Fraulini made Lead Belly guitar:
And here is Lead Belly performing Where Did You Sleep Last Night:
There’s that sound!
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About The Author
Ivan Munoz is a musician, bassist, singer, musicians advocate, and member of the Victor Talking Machine Company. Along with this Ivan can be found devoting his time to various musical projects, compositions, and working on musical instruments. Click the photo for more!