While behind bars, Lead Belly was exposed to prison folk songs, and ended up writing a song of his own dedicated to Texas Governor Pat Neff, who was “delighted,” as The Life and Legend recounts. The Governor was so taken by Lead Belly that he granted the singer a “full pardon” in January 1925. Lead Belly was subsequently released from Sugarland Penitentiary.

But the blues singer was known for his temper, which once again got him in trouble with the law when, back in Louisiana, he slashed a white man named Dick Ellet. The victim survived, but Lead Belly was once again sent to prison. He served his time doing hard labor at the notoriously rough Angola prison, where he was later “discovered” by John and Alan Lomax, a father-son team of folk music archivists.