How to acquire all recordings Lead Belly made for the Victor Records label (absorbed by RCA Records in 1929) and its subsidiary label Bluebird Records? Lead Belly recorded for Victor RCA/Bluebird on two dates: June 15th and June 17th of 1940 (a saturday and a monday, as it happens), a total of 27 known tracks.
The Lead Belly collection Take This Hammer – The Secret History of Rock & Roll (Bluebird 82876 50957 2 or RCA 50957), the fifth volume of Bluebird series When the Sun Goes Down sometimes has the claim to sport „The Complete RCA Victor Recordings“.
This is one track short of the truth: While it does have the unissued first take „Grey Goose“ (Victor 051327-1), it misses the alternate take of „Grey Goose (Take 2)“ (Victor 051327-2). These are often mistaken for one another, as the vocal performances of Lead Belly and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet were very precise – but apart from slightly different speeds (which could be due to pitch differences), some of the Quartet vocalists do notably different things in the background on the two tracks.
This track, „Grey Goose (Take 2)“ can almost exclusively be found on Document Records „Too Late, Too Late“: More Newly Discovered Titles And Alternate Takes, Volume 6 (1924-1946) (DOCD-5461).
There are two more Document Records that contain Victor/Bluebird recordings: Complete Recorded Works 1939-1947 In Chronological Order: Volume 1 (1 April 1939 To 15 June 1940) (DOCD-5226) and Complete Recorded Works 1939-1947 In Chronological Order: Volume 2 (17 June 1940 To Summer 1943) (DOCD-5227).
These are excellent compilations that contain many other Lead Belly tracks that you can almost exclusively get on them – so you need them. But they do not contain two tracks from the Victor sessions that are available on Take This Hammer: versions of „Yellow Gal“ and „Julianne Johnson“.
This creates one of the more unfortunate overlap situations for Lead Belly: If you get all three Document Records compilations (which you should), you’ll need to get Bluebird’s Take This Hammer for just two tracks.
This is a problem that nowadays can be solved through downloads, I guess, but then you miss out of the liner notes. Here is the tabella for Lead Belly’s Victor/Bluebird sessions:
| Lead Belly’s Victor/Bluebird Recordings | ||||
| No. / Source | Title | Document | others | Remarks |
| New York June 15, 1940 Huddie Ledbetter vocal/guitar with speech-1 | ||||
| 051295-1, Victor 27268 | Pick A Bale Of Cotton | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051296- , Victor unissued | Yellow Gal | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye; RCA 50957 notes it as „051296-1“ | |
| 051297-, Victor unissued | Whoa Back, Buck | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051298-1, Victor | Midnight Special | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051299-1, Victor 27268 | Alabama Bound | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051500-1, Victor | Rock Island Line | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051501-, Bluebird B8791 | Good Morning Blues | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051502-, Bluebird B8791 | Leaving Blues | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051503-1, Victor | T.B. Blues | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051504-, Bluebird B8709 | Red Cross Store Blues | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051505-, Bluebird B8550 | Sail On, Little Girl, Sail On | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051506-, Bluebird B8709 | Roberta | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051507-, Bluebird B8559 | Alberta | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051508-1, Victor | I’m on My Last Go Round | DOCD-5226 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| New York June 17, 1940 Huddie Ledbetter vocal/guitar with speech-1 | ||||
| 051322-1, Victor | Easy Rider | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051323-1, Bluebird B8750 | New York City | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051324-, Bluebird B8570 | Worried Blues | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051325-, Bluebird B8570 | Don’t You Love Your Daddy No More? | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye. Fancourt notes that Wolfe/Lornell also incorrectly note this track for August 4, 1949. |
| 051326-1, Bluebird B8750 | You Can’t Lose-A Me Cholly | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye. Fancourt notes that Wolfe/Lornell also incorrectly note this track for August 4, 1949. |
| 051327-1, Victor unissued | Grey Goose | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051327-2, Victor 27267 | Grey Goose (Take 2) | DOCD-5461 | in: Dixon/Godrich/Rye | |
| 051328-1, Victor unissued | Didn’t Ol‘ John Cross The Water? | DOCD-5411 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051329-1, Victor 27267 | Stew Ball | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051330-, Victor unissued | Take This Hammer | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051331-, Victor unissued | Can’t You Line ‚Em | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
| 051332- | Julianne Johnson | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye; RCA 50957 notes it as „051332-1“ | |
| 051333-1, Victor 27266 | Ham An‘ Eggs | DOCD-5227 | RCA 50957 | in: Wolfe/Lornell; Dixon/Godrich/Rye |
Text Lambrecht 