Pete Seeger's acknowledged major influences are
Leadbelly and
Woody Guthrie, and he performed their songs frequently. In 1968, Folkways Records combed through its extensive catalog of
Seeger recordings to compile two collections,
Pete Seeger Sings Leadbelly and
Pete Seeger Sings Woody Guthrie. The
Leadbelly album consists entirely of live performances, including ones drawn from
Seeger shows performed with
Big Bill Broonzy ("Midnight Special"),
Sonny Terry ("Pick a Bale of Cotton"), and the team of
Memphis Slim and
Willie Dixon ("New York City").
Seeger is an expert at re-creating
Leadbelly's playing style on the 12-string acoustic guitar (he has even made an instructional record on the subject), and that can be heard particularly on the later selections here. In terms of the lyrics, however,
Seeger necessarily comes at the material from a sympathetic remove, if only because he's not a Southern black man and must offer songs like "Bring Me Little Water, Silvy" and "Bourgeois Blues" as stories involving someone other than himself. The biggest popular hit of
Seeger's career is "Goodnight Irene," a song of
Leadbelly's that concludes the disc, and his audience willingly sings along. The album constitutes
Seeger's tribute to a performer who helped to shape his musical sensibility.