Leadbelly

Dan: Around the time we did our second recording session for this record, we were spending a lot of time listening to Mississippi John Hurt’s Las Sessions LP (Vanguard Records). The performances are time stopping in their gentleness and depth and his version of this song provided the inspiration for us to take a shot at recording it ourselves. Goodnight Irene is a classic ode to suicide, and we changed it a bit for the babies. Hurt’s “great notion” about jumping in the river and drowning sounds, in his hands, like peaceful resignation in the face of mortality, and it is undeniably powerful and necessary. But for the kids we thought the B52’s had a better idea for what to do when you aren’t sure which way you’re going on the way home. Hurt claims to have learned the song from a Leadbelly record, and that is the place to turn for the definitive Irene. Check out Leadbelly Sings for Children (Folkways) or Leadbelly’s Last Sessions (Folkways) which is an amazing record. Some of the most mindblowing acousitc guitar playing ever rocorded can be found on a great collection called Mississippi John Hurt Avalon Blues: The Complete 1928 Okeh Recordings (Columbia Legacy/Okeh).