Last Sessions!

AMG Review of Last Sessions!

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

Last Sessions! contains 88 of the 96 or so songs Leadbelly recorded between September 27 and November 5 at Frederick Ramsey, Jr.'s apartment in 1948, recordings that would turn out to be -- save for a live show later that November -- his last, and the only ones he ever preserved on magnetic tape. The tape medium allowed for between-song comments by the singer, and adds to the intimacy of these sessions, which feature a truly remarkable range of folk pieces, from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, allads, children's songs, and a scattering of lues. Leadbelly apparently forgot to bring a guitar to one of these casual recording dates, so there is an unusual amount of unaccompanied singing here, which isn't a problem, really, and only further illustrates Leadbelly's complete familiarity with his large repertoire (he is rumored to have known well over a thousand songs). Smithsonian Folkways released the complete recordings from the Ramsey sessions as a four-disc box set called Leadbelly's Last Sessions in 1994, and while this slightly truncated three-disc version from Comet Records is fine, there is really no reason not to just get the Smithsonian Folkways set.