The Guitar of Lead Belly
Harry Lewman Harry Lewman is a performing guitarist and vocalist who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. His love of Lead Belly's music goes back to his childhood and his first successful performances were arrangements of Lead Belly's songs. Harry specializes in playing 12-string guitar. It was his knowledge of both Lead Belly's music and studio recording techniques that made it possible for him to produce the Lead Belly songbook: "Lead Belly, No Stranger to the Blues" for TRO/Folkways Music Publishers. In order to produce the high quality transcriptions for this songbook, Harry created MIDI sequences of Lead Belly's guitar and voice and used the sequence to produce the written score. Through his active participation in the Lead Belly Society and the Lead Belly Foundation, Harry and those organizations have helped demystity the man and helped the musical community better understand Lead Belly the musician.