“Goodnight, Irene” or “Irene, Goodnight”, is a 20th-century American folk standard, written in 3/4 time, first recorded by American blues musician Huddie ‘Lead Belly’ Ledbetter in 1933. The lyrics tell of the singer’s troubled past with his love, Irene, and express his sadness and frustration. In 1950, one year after Leadbelly’s death, the American folk band The Weavers recorded a version of “Goodnight, Irene”. The single first reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on June 30, 1950 and lasted 25 weeks on the chart, peaking at #1 for 13 weeks. Billboard ranked this version as the No. 1 song of 1950. (More from Wikipedia)
John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax promoted Lead Belly as an authentic American folksinger, and two of his songs rank high in the folk pantheon: “Goodnight Irene” was a big hit in 1950 for the early folksinging group the Weavers (whose members included Pete Seeger), and the country-blues song “Midnight Special” became the name and also the theme song of a popular musical variety program, The Midnight Special which ran from 1972 to 1981. The latter song was attributed by the Lomaxes to Lead Belly (that was the way that Huddie Ledbetter himself used the nickname); though the song is actually much older, Lead Belly apparently supplied several verses of his own to the song. The reference is to a late-night train that would lift the spirits of men in prison as it rolled past.
(February 2015)
