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Angola Prison – the Louisiana State Penitentiary – lies at the dead end of a back country road in West Feliciana Parish about 50 miles off the State Capitol, Baton Rouge.

To get there you drive north up Highway 61, and then for some 20 miles the road winds peacefully through thickly wooded, undulating countryside. Unexpectedly the trees disappear, and on the edge of a grassy plain a quarter of a mile in the distance is a small gatehouse.

The few bored armed guards standing around in their mirror sunglasses will be watching your approaching vehicle with the kind of suspicion US troops reserve for ramshackle vehicles at checkpoints the world over. It's an unsettling feeling, and even more so to have your car torn apart and sniffed over by German Shepherds searching for drugs; but then Angola's always been a hard place to get into, and an even harder place to get out.

"Leadbelly's main claim to a unique place in American blues history is because of his quite incredible repertoire of songs."

Although Angola Prison has never quite received the notoriety of Parchman Farm in neighbouring Mississippi, it does come pretty close. Two of America's finest Folk Blues singers – Leadbelly and Robert Pete Williams – were both 'discovered' here and, as a result, its place in the annals of blues history is assured.

Despite being convicted murderers guilty of gruesome crimes, both escaped not by crawling under the razor wire with bloodhounds on their trail, but bizarrely by singing for a pardon. Leadbelly's main claim to a unique place in American blues history is because of his quite incredible repertoire of songs – everything from cowboy ballads like Out On The Western Plain, recorded by Rory Gallagher, to his take on the old English ballad Gallows Pole, famously immortalised by Led Zeppelin, and Goodnight Irene, recorded by just about everybody.

In the days before karaoke machines, Leadbelly was just a walking jukebox, and his vast recorded heritage is the finest musical link between the 'Songster' tradition of the late 1800s and the later country blues styles of the early part of the 20th century.

So prolifically did he record that during the early 1960s you'd even find Leadbelly albums nestling up to the likes of The Ink Spots in the record racks of Woolworth's. Back in those glory days Woolworth's only sold 'budget' albums, alongside Lightnin' Hopkins, Leadbelly made it through to the 12/6d shelf.

He was born Huddie Ledbetter in 1885 at Morringsport Louisiana, close to Caddo lake, a beautiful tranquil spot far removed from the bright city lights of Shreveport, the nearest big town. His parents were farmers and, by all accounts, Huddie was a tough kid who was able to pick more cotton than anyone else, and who quickly came to like women, corn liquor and trouble in about equal proportions.

Particularly he liked hanging out on Fannin' Street, Shreveport's red light area and a place which would inspire one of his best known songs. By the age of 16 he not only gained an enviable reputation for his sexual prowess, but had heard the barrel house piano players whose use of 'walking bass' figures would later become a trademark of his powerful rhythmic style.

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