Archivist and producer Jeff Place discusses Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, the 108-track, 140-page box set dedicated to American music icon Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter. From some of his first recordings at the Library of Congress to his last at Fred Ramsey's apartment in 1948, Jeff walks us through the process of creating the best possible overview of Lead Belly's career.

Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, the first career-spanning box set dedicated to the American music icon, features 5 hours of music with 16 unreleased tracks. Lead Belly is “the hard name of a harder man,” said Woody Guthrie of his friend and fellow American music icon who was born Huddie Ledbetter (c. 1888–1949). From the swamplands of Louisiana, the prisons of Texas, and the streets of New York City, Lead Belly and his music became cornerstones of American folk music and touchstones of African American cultural legacy.

With his 12-string Stella guitar, he sang out a cornucopia of songs that included his classics “The Midnight Special,” “Irene,” “The Bourgeois Blues,” and many more, which in turn have been covered by musical notables such as the Beach Boys, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Van Morrison, Nirvana, Odetta, Little Richard, Pete Seeger, Frank Sinatra and Tom Waits. 'Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection' brings us the story of the man as well as the musician.