THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

by Richard M. & Edmond G. Addeo Garvin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 8, 1971

A garish and flat-footed ""novel"" based on the life and hard times of Huddie Ledbetter, king of the 12-string guitar who sang his way in and out of southern prisons and chain gangs and who, since his death in 1950, has become a legend to students of American folk music. The authors have put a great deal of painstaking research into reconstructing the facts of Leadbelly's life but the historical verisimilitude has only been used to aggrandize the stereotype of the Biggest, Baddest, Blackest Negro of them all -- knife fights, whiskey and women done him in. A simple heart and a violent temper kept him dreaming of fame and riches as he brawled and balled his way through the South offending white sensibilities with his ""sweaty splendor and muscular turbulence."" One day Alan Lomax discovered him, brought him North (""Fifth Avenoo! New Yawk! New Yawk!"") where he titillated the palpitating hearts of Bryn Mawr debutantes and briefly made the intellectual cocktail party circuit before dying broke and disillusioned. ""You are,"" a friend cautioned him, ""a King Kong sort of attraction because of your background"" and sad to say, it's exactly the King Kong aspects of the Leadbelly myth which are sensationalized here at the expense of imaginative empathy, literary craftsmanship and the whimsical, gentle good humor which survives in his music.

Pub Date: Nov. 8, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Geis

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION