Midnight Special

Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter was an inmate at the brutal Angola prison when folklorists John and Alan Lomax arrived with a 315-pound aluminum recording machine in the trunk of their car. Inside the prison walls, Lead Belly delivered a booming, definitive version of "Midnight Special," a traditional passenger train song that inmates believed brought the light of salvation. He battered his twelve-string guitar with incredible force, his immense voice capturing both deep despair and fierce resilience. The Lomaxes did petition the Louisiana governor on his behalf, though modern accounts suggest Lead Belly's release owed more to accumulated good-time credits than to any single song.