Huddie Ledbetter. Lead Belly. The man who sang his way out of prison. Twice. He was doing hard time in a Texas prison when he sang a song for the governor and walked out a free man. Did it again in Louisiana. He carried the American songbook in his head -- work songs, field hollers, ballads, and blues that had never been written down.

John Lomax, the folklorist, recorded him for the Library of Congress and then dressed him in prison stripes on tour because white audiences wanted the convict, not the artist. Lead Belly played along because the songs -- Goodnight Irene, Midnight Special, Rock Island Line -- were bigger than any indignity.

Lonnie Donegan covered Rock Island Line and started skiffle. Skiffle inspired a generation of British teenagers to pick up guitars. One was John Lennon. Another was Paul McCartney. Without Lead Belly -- without the songs he carried in his head -- there is no folk revival, no skiffle, no Beatles. The bridge between the work song and the British Invasion died in 1949, but the songs never stopped moving.

Lead Belly was the living link between the 19th century and the 20th, between the work songs of the plantation and the pop songs of the radio. He died without ever seeing the revolution his music launched. But every folk singer who picked up a guitar in the 1960s was walking in his shadow. Every British kid who started a skiffle band was playing his songs. The work song became the Beatles. Lead Belly made that possible.