Leadbelly (film) For a while, she takes care of him until the police arrive, breaking up a party. Leadbelly and an old man escape via a train and Leadbelly buys a twelve-string acoustic guitar from the old man. Seeking work, he takes a job picking cotton. He soon leaves on a train to Silver City where he meets Blind Lemon and they start playing shows together. At one show, a drunken man tells Leadbelly to keep playing, and threatens him. Leadbelly responds by smashing his guitar onto him and is arrested. He escapes from jail and leads a normal life until he
He Was a Friend of Mine who first picked up the song from the Library of Congress recordings was Rolf Cahn. He recorded the song on his influential 1961 Folkways album "Rolf Cahn & Eric von Schmidt", where the song for the first time was titled "He Was a Friend of Mine". Bob Dylan picked up the song from the Cahn recording and made some changes to the song when he recorded it for his first album on November 20, 1961. However, Dylan's recording was not included in the album. It did show up on various Dylan bootleg albums which received wide distribution soon thereafter. That