7. He moved to New York, and (briefly) got the exposure his music deserved… at a cost
Upon his release, Leadbelly was taken under Lomax’s wing, and performed at a meeting of the Modern Language Association at Bryn Mawr College. Lomax brokered a much-criticised deal with Leadbelly, which saw him take two-thirds of the singer’s earnings from his music and concerts. Heading north, Leadbelly toured colleges including Harvard, and the ‘singing convict’ soon garnered great attention in the press, chiefly for his controversial history. The New York Tribune once described him as ‘a sweet singer of the Swamplands, here to do a few tunes between homicides’. Sadly, though, Leadbelly earned barely anything during his time with Lomax.
Trying to keep a physically-immense, foul-tempered and hard-drinking convict under control in 1930s New York soon took its toll on Lomax, and after poor record sales the two parted ways within a few months. Leadbelly successfully sued his former manager for withholding his earnings (on the flimsy pretext of stopping Leadbelly drinking his money away all at once), but this acrimony didn’t stop Lomax publishing his book, Negro Folk Songs As Sung by Lead Belly, in 1936. Leadbelly returned to New York alone, and found acclaim amongst left-leaning folk music fans in Harlem, including the controversial novelist Richard Wright.