MATT HLINAK

This Whole Wide World

John Hardy, he was a desp'rate little man,
Carried two guns ev'ry day.
He shot a man on the West Virginia line,
Oughta see John Hardy gettin' away, oh boy,
Oughta see John Hardy gettin' away.

The only thing known for certain about John Hardy is that he was hanged for murder on January 19, 1894, in Welch, West Virginia. Even his age is in doubt. One of the jurors at his trial figured him to be about twenty-five, while the assistant clerk of the court thought he was forty. There was general agreement, though, that he was over six feet tall, well built, and "very black." Folklorist John Harrington Cox argued that John Hardy was actually John Henry, the "steel-drivin' man" immortalized in another song although we now know this to be false. Hardy was no hero by any stretch of the imagination, but people love tales of outlaws who almost get away.

Huddie William Ledbetter, who would one day make John Hardy famous, was born in 1888 or 1889 (or maybe it was 1885) on a Louisiana plantation. Like Hardy, he was tall and dark-skinned. He would continue to use his given name until his first stint in prison in 1915 when he would be dubbed Leadbelly. One hot August day, a fellow inmate stabbed Ledbetter in the neck. He wrested the knife away and sliced off his attacker's index finger and most of his thumb. A guard came just in time to save the man's life by unloading his shotgun into Ledbetter's stomach. Ledbetter dropped to the ground without a cry. As the guard reloaded, Ledbetter tossed the bloody knife away and said, "I think you dropped your buckshot, Boss, but don't worry, since I didn't let none of it spill onto the floor." The prison doctors did what they could, but a few pieces of lead embedded themselves into Ledbetter's ribs where they would remain for the rest of his life.

John Lomax, who would one day make Leadbelly famous, was a white man of cowboy stock born in 1867. He grew up on his father's ranch in Bosque County, Texas. When he was nine, his father hired an eighteen-year-old ex-slave named Nat Blythe to help work the ranch. Young Lomax taught Blythe how to read in exchange for music lessons. Over the next three years, the two formed a friendship of sorts. Although Lomax never acquired much musical ability, he collected a library of old songs sung by slaves and cowboys. He kept them in a notebook he bound himself that he would one day show to one of his professors at the University of Texas. "You see, Professor Morgan," he said, "We are developing our own American mythology, the poetry of the common man. These are our Canterbury Tales!"

Professor Morgan laughed. "Poetry is not common, son," he replied. "These songs of yours are cheap and unworthy of study."

Ashamed, Lomax scurried back to the dormitory and burned the notebook. He immediately regretted this decision, as did those of us who followed him. A few of the songs in that notebook were written down nowhere else.

My thesis advisor was Adam Lefkowitz, whose thesis advisor was "Black" Jack Dobson, who studied under William McMurtry, who was a student of Lomax's at Texas A&M. I can thus trace my lineage, as it were, directly to John Lomax, a fact that gives me a certain cache in the limited world of American folklorists. I stumbled onto my life's vocation rather by accident. While pursuing a doctorate in Middle English literature at Northwestern, I wrote an essay on the Canterbury Tales, which was rejected by every journal in the field. But after a late-night debate with my roommate over the jukebox at a northside bar, I dashed off a 100-word proposal to a folk music panel at the Modern Language Association conference for an as-yet-unwritten paper comparing versions of "John Hardy" by the Kingston Trio and Bob Dylan. The proposal was surprisingly accepted, which required a quick submersion in the field of folklore studies in order to dash out the paper, which in turn was well-received and eventually published in the Journal of American Folklore. I haven't come up for air since.

John Hardy went up on that Keystone Bridge,
There he thought he was free.
Up stepped a man, and he caught him by the hand,
Saying, "Johnny, come and go with me, poor boy,
Johnny, come and go with me."

Or maybe Leadbelly got his name like this: He was an accomplished musicianer by the age of fourteen, playing nightly at a Shreveport whorehouse called Annabelle's. When he was in prison years later, the warden let him bring in his twelve-string, so he could entertain convict and turnkey alike. The guards rewarded him by relieving him from time to time of his work duties. One day, while the other prisoners swung their hammers in the searing sun, Ledbetter dozed in the shade of an oak tree. His comrades joked he had lead weights in his belly that prevented him from rising up to help. Or maybe he got his name when a few inmates got their hands on a jug of rotgut moonshine so harsh it made them sick, all except Ledbetter, who was then said to have lead-lining in his intestines. Or maybe Leadbelly is just a play on Ledbetter, and there is no real story behind it. I personally prefer the shotgun story.

Lomax looked up to Blythe who was big and strong and could sing and play guitar. Blythe could also dance. He taught Lomax "the Juba," an old plantation dance with lots of stomping and clapping. "Listen here, Johnny," he explained. "Dancing is your way of showing a woman that you know how to move. You follow me?" At twelve-years-old, Lomax had recently become aware of women and found he could think of little else. "I follow you, Nat, but will a colored dance work on white girls?" Blythe grinned so lasciviously that Lomax realized the world was not as black-and-white as he had been taught. A month later, he struggled to hide his tears when Blythe decided to strike out on his own. The two shook hands like men and then never saw one another again. Lomax would later hear a rumor that Blythe had been murdered, though neither he nor I could find out what really happened. For years he would ask after Blythe anytime he met a southern black musicianer -- and he met a lot of them -- but no one knew what had happened to his old friend.

"Wait a minute," interjects Sherrie, who is drawing on her own impoverished experience to write a dissertation on folkloric elements of African-American street slang, "how do you know that Lomax and Blythe talked about women?"

I smile. "We know that they were friends," I reply. "What do you think young men who are friends talk about?"

Sherrie shakes her head. "Okay, but then you insinuate that Blythe had sex with white women."

The young have such a heightened sense of right and wrong. "Interracial romance is not a modern invention," I say. "If Lomax looked up to Blythe, it's quite likely that women saw something in him as well."

Sherrie sighs with exasperation. "But you can't present something as a fact without proof."

I place my hand on her arm. "There are no facts, only stories."

John Hardy was a coal-miner for the Shawnee Coal Company. It was filthy, dangerous work, and it attracted filthy, dangerous men. One such man was Thomas Drews, a mouthy nineteen-year-old swindler up from Richmond. One autumn evening in the Shawnee mining camp, Drews skinned Hardy in a craps game. Hardy had found himself a bit distracted by a sixteen-year-old camp follower named Tula Delacourte who perched on his knee. He was sure the kid was palming the dice, and he rose to take his money back, letting Tula slide off his lap. Drews whipped a razor out of his pocket. Now at this point, I should mention that the song is wrong about Hardy carrying two guns every day. The fact is, he only owned one gun and, on this day in particular, he was unarmed. Hardy backed away and said, "Come on, Tula, let's go home." But Tula was not his wife. She was young and still impressed by bravado and money, both of which Drews seemed to possess in greater measure than Hardy. The kid grinned real wide and pulled Tula towards him with his left hand, still brandishing the razor with his right.

John Hardy had a mother and a father, too.
He sent for her to come and go his bail.
There were no bail 'llowed for the murd'rin' man
So they shoved John Hardy back in jail, oh boy,
They shoved John Hardy back in jail.

Tula Delacourte did not, as far as I know, actually exist. We know (or are at least pretty sure) that Hardy and Drews got into an argument over a craps game. But the Wheeling Daily Register reported at the time that the shooting was really over a woman and that the craps dispute had been a pretext. This story makes the most sense to me even though I can't find any accounts to back it up. Modern legends aren't so different from their ancient counterparts. Why should we be surprised to see Helen of Troy in Appalachia? Nothing drives men to do foolish things like beautiful women. I'm pleased with this analogy although it's only for my benefit.

Sherrie stopped coming to our weekly advising sessions. I hear she's filing some kind of complaint about me.

Lomax realized "the Juba" would not work for him the way it evidently had for Blythe. He had little luck with women until the age of thirty-one when he struck up a courtship with Miss Shirley Green, a delicate girl from Palestine, Texas. She was reluctant to rise from her chair, much less dance, so he was never able to demonstrate to her the way he moved. Miss Shirley was a proper girl, of course, and Lomax had few illusions about catching her in a compromising position. Besides, he was a man now, not a boy seeking cheap thrills. So he asked her to marry him. She didn't say no, but she didn't say yes either. He figured he simply hadn't made a strong enough case. He sought to gain an advantage by being extra-complimentary toward Mrs. Green's cooking. He even purchased a fifteen-cent box of cigars for Mr. Green, who grunted his appreciation. But still Miss Shirley demurred. One day, Lomax asked her friend, Miss Bess Baumann Brown, for advice. "Oh, John," Miss Bess said, "Can't you see? It's consumption. She's dying." Lomax understood that he and Miss Shirley could not be wed, but he nevertheless kept up his courtship for five years until she died in 1903. A year later, he and Miss Bess married in Austin.

When John Hardy went back to his cabin that night, he was furious.

"What you so angry about?" his roommate, Webb Gudgin, asked.

"That viper Tom Drews just stole my money!" he shouted back.

"Where’s Tula?" Gudgin asked.

"He stole her too!"

Gudgin laughed until Hardy pulled his Schofield revolver from under his pillow and slid it into his belt. "C'mon, Webb, let's kill that son of a bitch."

Gudgin didn't want any part of it, but he followed after Hardy just the same to see what was going to happen.

In 1925, Leadbelly was seven years into his second stint in prison. Though he'd been caught trying to escape three times, he won the guards over with his music. Word of the melodious murderer spread throughout the Texas State Penal System until one Sunday afternoon, Governor Pat Morris Neff himself arrived to hear him play. Leadbelly was no fool. He knew the good Christian man came to prison on a Sunday to see a sinner redeemed. Leadbelly stirred the politician's soul with old slave songs of wicked men turned to the path of righteousness by the light of Jesus Christ. He concluded with an original composition about the Biblical Paul and Silas, who were freed from captivity by a miraculous earthquake; the song ended with a plea: "If I had you, Governor Neff, where you got me, I'd wake up in the morning and set you free." The next day, Leadbelly received a pardon.

John Hardy, he had a pretty little wife,
The dress she wore was blue.
She come to the jailhouse with a loud shout,
Saying, "Johnny, I been true to you, oh boy,
Johnny, I been true to you."

In the time it had taken Hardy to get his pistol, Tula had drunk all of Thomas Drews's whiskey and lost interest in him. When Hardy returned, Tula sang out, "John Hardy, you come back to me."

He replied, "This got nothin' to do with you, Tula. This kid cheated me, and I aim to talk to him."

Drews laid his razor on the table in front of him and said, "It's just a game, John, and I beat you fair and square. Why don't you sit back down and try to win your money back?"

Hardy sneered at him. "Because you stole all my money, you viper!"

Drews snatched the razor back up and rose to his feet, but Tula stepped between them. "No need for fighting, boys," she said, slapping two dimes and a nickel down on the table, "John Hardy can play with this."

Hardy kissed Tula on the mouth and laid his revolver on top of the money. He spoke to the gun: "Now I want you to lay here, and the first man who steals my woman's money, I mean to kill him." Ten minutes later, the twenty-five cents belonged to Drews. After the last roll of the dice, Hardy jumped to his feet and leveled his pistol. "I said I’d kill any man that stole my woman’s money." Drews slid five nickels across the table and told Hardy to calm down. Hardy replied, "Don't you know that I won't lie to my gun?"

Like Hardy, it looks like a woman will lead to my downfall as well. Sherrie complained to my to department chair, Melinda Waxpole, about "inappropriate touching" because I put my hand on her arm. Melinda reads Sherrie's accusations to me. Sherrie believes that touching her arm was either an unwelcome sexual advance on a student or "an act signifying [my] ownership/possession of a woman of a color." In either event, I am to appear before a University disciplinary committee to present my side of the story.

John Lomax became a pioneer in the study of American folklore. He taught at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas, wrote a number of books on the songs of the Old West, and co-founded the Texas Folklore Society. Though too naïve to realize it at the time, his politics would get in the way of his career. On the one hand, Lomax showed a respectful interest in black culture and opposed segregation, which was, to say the least, an unpopular position in Texas at the time. On the other hand, he hated the Roosevelts and was a vocal critic of progressivism, which alienated him from potential allies in the academy. In 1917 he wrote a letter to the editor of the Austin Democratic-Statesman calling Governor "Pa" Ferguson "a Godless socialistic demagogue unworthy of the great Republic of Texas." Ferguson retaliated by firing Lomax and six other University of Texas faculty members who'd criticized him, an abuse of power for which he would be impeached and removed from office. While this political drama played itself out, Lomax went to work for a former student selling bonds in Chicago. That first winter convinced him to return to his beloved Texas, where he took a job at Republic National Bank in Dallas. The cowboy scholar took surprisingly well to banking, and the Lomaxes enjoyed their life until Bess died in 1931, leaving John to raise four children by himself. Shortly after Bess's death, Republic National failed. For two straight days, Lomax telephoned all of the bank's customers to inform them that their bonds were now worthless.

Leadbelly spent a total of twelve years in prison. He was first convicted, at the age of twenty-seven or so, of carrying a pistol, which was against the law in Texas (for a black man, at least). He escaped from the Harrison County chain gang, took the name "Walter Boyd," and kept himself more or less out of trouble for the next two years. In 1918, he visited a juke joint outside of Houston with his cousin, Will Stafford. Leadbelly and Stafford both drank too much whiskey and wound up fighting each other over the affections of a young lady. The cousins both carried pistols, but Leadbelly was either quicker on the draw or less drunk than Stafford. Leadbelly was sentenced to thirty-five years in the Sugar Land Prison, which he would memorialize in his version of "Midnight Special": "If you're ever down in Houston, / Boy, you better walk right. / And you better not squabble. / And you better not fight /…You can bet your bottom dollar, / That you're Sugar Land bound." After his pardon by Governor Neff in 1925, Leadbelly left Texas and made a modest living playing in bars up and down the Mississippi River. In 1930, Leadbelly found himself in Angola prison after attacking a group of white men who'd jostled him on the sidewalk. In 1939, he spent nine months in prison for stabbing a man who'd made an ungallant remark to Mrs. Martha Ledbetter.

John Hardy was standin' in his cell
And tears were rollin' down his eyes.
He said, "I have been the devil of many-a-poor man
And now I'm ready to die, oh boy,
And now I am ready to die."

It gets worse for me. I sit here silently as the disciplinary committee takes Sherrie's testimony on our little touching incident, when she adds, almost as an afterthought, "he makes stuff up, too." When pressed on this, Sherrie produces a folder containing seven of my published articles, three of which are older than she is. She's taken the time to highlight every supposed error and even photocopied some of my sources. She calls me "a serial fabricator" and invites the members of the committee to see for themselves. Dr. Doddard, the crusty old chemist chairing the disciplinary committee, furrows his ancient brow and requests "an adjournment to examine this most serious of accusations." I decide to hire a lawyer.

In July of 1933, Leadbelly was summoned from his cell to meet with two curious white men over from Texas: John Lomax, now sixty-six years old, and his eighteen-year-old son, Alan, who'd taken leave from Harvard to help his father in the wake of his mother's death. They had driven their A-Model Ford right into the yard of Angola prison. In the trunk they had mounted a three-hundred pound acetate phonograph disk recorder. The Lomaxes addressed Leadbelly as "Mr. Ledbetter" and both shook his hand. "They say you are a human jukebox, Mr. Ledbetter," John said, "and I was hoping you'd be willing to play a few songs for me."

Leadbelly had already sung himself out of prison once and saw a golden opportunity to do it again. "Sure thing, Boss, what you want to hear?"

John smiled. "Do you know 'John Hardy'?"

John Hardy gunned down Thomas Drews in front of a dozen witnesses. Webb Gudgin had wanted no part of the violence, but didn't want to see his friend hanged either. The two ran back to the cabin to pick up Gudgin's Winchester and then headed up into the mountains to hide. A day later, lawmen and their dogs followed after them. Hardy and Gudgin could see their pursuers from up above and Gudgin fired his rifle into the air. The report echoed for miles around and convinced the lawmen not to charge into the wilderness. After a few days, the fugitives skulked down the mountain by moonlight and camped just outside of Northfork Station. They boarded the 9:15-to-Charlottesville thinking they were free, but the sheriff and his deputy snuck on the train behind them. With the advantage of surprise, the constables arrested Hardy and Gudgin without a fight. The sheriff cuffed himself to Hardy and the deputy did the same to Gudgin, and they led their captives to a half-empty car near the engine. Just as the train crossed the Keystone Bridge, the sheriff and Hardy were passing from one car to another. Hardy saw the Tug River churning below him and he jumped for it. The sheriff pulled back on his end of the shackles and kept from being pulled over while Hardy dangled over the edge of the railing. The strain dislocated the sheriff's shoulder, but he held on. Two passengers came to his aid and hoisted Hardy back onto the train. The sheriff used his good arm to strike Hardy twice over the head with the butt of his pistol, and there was no more trouble after that.

John Lomax was working on a grant to collect recordings for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. He knew that the challenge to preserving oral tradition was contamination by modernity. Lomax felt that the radio was homogenizing music, and soon there would be nothing left but jazz. In the prisons. However, there were men who'd been so long incarcerated they were living artifacts unaffected by changing musical tastes. His greatest find was a relatively young man who still remembered all the old songs from his youth, the "Murdering Minstrel" of Angola prison. Over the next year, they recorded more than three hundred songs. In 1934, Leadbelly asked Lomax if they could make a special record and Lomax obliged. On one side, they recorded "Goodnight, Irene" (which would become Leadbelly's signature song), but on the other was the "Pardoning Song" Leadbelly had sung to Governor Neff. This version contained a direct appeal to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen. Lomax sent the record to Allen, and Leadbelly was shortly thereafter let go. In truth, the governor never listened to the record; Leadbelly had already served the minimum sentence and was released for good behavior. Both Leadbelly and Lomax nevertheless believed the record led to another pardon, convincing Lomax of the liberating power of music.

I've been to the East, I've been to the West,
I've been this whole wide world round.
I've been to the river and I've been baptized.
Now take me to my hangin' ground, oh Lord,
Take me to my hangin' ground.

John Lomax received a letter from Leadbelly shortly after his release from Angola. Per the terms of his parole, Leadbelly needed to work a respectable job, so he asked if he could do some work for Lomax, the only respectable man he knew. Lomax hired Leadbelly to drive his car as he lectured throughout the northeast. For six months, Leadbelly played songs to help illustrate Lomax's points on folk music at places like Bryn Mawr, Yale, and Harvard. The newspapers ate up the story of the convicted murderer and respected scholar who shared a love for music. By the end of the lecture tour, Leadbelly was famous. He hired John and Alan Lomax to manage him, and they agreed to split any royalties three ways. John almost immediately signed a contract with American Recording Company, and they set out on tour. Three weeks into the tour, John Lomax left Leadbelly in New York City after Leadbelly stormed into his hotel room, dead drunk, brandishing a penknife and demanding money. In genuine fear for his life, Lomax gave Leadbelly the two dollars in his pocket. Under the terms of their agreement, Lomax owed Leadbelly $300 from the ARC advance. He wrote out two checks for $100 and one for $98 (to account for the advance he'd given at knife-point) and mailed them to Leadbelly's wife, Martha, since he worried that Leadbelly would squander all of the money in Harlem nightclubs. He also post-dated two of the checks to make sure Leadbelly wouldn't spend all the money at once.

Leadbelly awoke with a brutal headache and a missing manager. When he returned home, he realized that Lomax had given his money to Martha and that two of the checks couldn't even be cashed yet. "That shifty bastard thinks he's my daddy or something?" he shouted to his wife. "I earned that money, I'll spend it any way I damn please." His first instinct was to stab Lomax, but Martha advocated a more measured response. She persuaded him to hire a lawyer, who got Lomax to pay Leadbelly the balance in cash. These would be the only royalties Leadbelly would receive in his lifetime. John Lomax and Leadbelly never reconciled, but the singer and young Alan continued to work together until Leadbelly’s death in 1949, a year after John died. A year later, the Weavers had a hit with "Goodnight, Irene," a song copyrighted by Leadbelly and John Lomax, though neither man had written it. A number of other white artists made money with their versions of songs Leadbelly made famous, though he could hardly stake claim to songs first sung before he was born.

I am charged with academic misconduct, which normally means taking credit for the work of others, but in my case means "falsifying data," as if the study of folklore was the mere entry of digits into a computer. My disciplinary hearing lasts far longer than the murder trials of Ledbelly or John Hardy, but the outcome is no different. All three of us are guilty of the crime with which we're charged, after all. When I walk to the hearing room, all of the members greet me with stoic looks and then cast their gazes to the table. Sherrie sits stone-faced as Dr. Doddard reads the committee's decision. Laying my hand on Sherrie's arm is deemed to be an innocent though ill-advised action, and I'm formally advised not to have any physical contact beyond a handshake with a student again. This is rather meaningless advice, however, since the committee also finds me guilty of scholarly misconduct, revokes my tenure, and fires me.

John Hardy stood trial for the murder of Thomas Drews on October 12, 1893. He was represented by a retired judge named Henry Herndon who accepted the murder weapon as payment of his fee. An all-white jury found Hardy guilty, and he was sentenced to die. Webb Gudgin was sentenced to life in prison for the attempted murder of the sheriff, though he'd been peaceably shackled to the deputy when Hardy had tried to jump off the train. Hardy spent the next three months in jail awaiting his sentence. Two days before the hanging, he watched out his window as the gallows were erected. His only visitor over those three months was his lawyer. "I'm going to Hell, ain't I, Judge?" Hardy asked one day.

"That's for God to decide," Herndon replied, "but He forgives those who seek His forgiveness."

At Hardy's request, Herndon arranged for him to be baptized in the Tug River. It was a frosty January day, the day before the execution, and four guards marched Hardy down to the river before removing his shackles at the water's edge. A white preacher named Lex Evans stood shivering in the river. "Tell the Lord you're sorry for what you done, my son" he said. With four pistols trained on his head, Hardy dropped to his knees, and the icy water splashed against his chest. Waves of numbness crept up his body. He begged God's forgiveness and wished Thomas Drews's soul a speedy journey to heaven (though he of course doubted that's where it was headed). The preacher stepped forward, gripped Hardy by the shoulders, and plunged the murderer's head beneath the water.

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