Goodnight, Irene

John and Alan Lomax hauled a 315-pound aluminum disc recording machine into the brutal Angola prison camp, where they met an inmate serving time for attempted murder: Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter. Accompanied by his massive 12-string guitar, Lead Belly recorded a waltz-time folk song he'd learned from his uncle. In 1950, a year after Lead Belly died in poverty, the folk group The Weavers recorded a sanitized, heavily orchestrated cover of the song that went to number one in America. It sparked the massive 1950s folk revival, bringing prison yard blues into white suburban living rooms.