14. He was sent to a chain gang for carrying a pistol, but escaped by outrunning the guards’ dogs
Ill health curtailed Leadbelly’s travelling blues career for a time, and he returned to Bowie County and promptly got married. But once he was better, he returned to his raucous itinerant (and, nonetheless, womanising) lifestyle, and in 1915 received his first conviction. Embroiled in another bar fight in Texas, Leadbelly punched a man in the face, pulled a pistol, then pistol-whipped an onlooker. His parents sold the farm to pay for legal representation, but in vain: Leadbelly received 30 days’ hard labour on a chain gang and a $73 fine, which he could barely afford to pay.
But the chain gang in Harrison County, Texas, only had him for a couple of days. As soon as the guards’ backs were turned, Leadbelly did a bolter, somehow outrunning and outfoxing the fearsome prison dogs on his tail. Finding his way back to Bowie County, Leadbelly adopted the pseudonym Walter Boyd, and found work as a sharecropper for the next few years. His public musical endeavours were kept to a minimum at this time, but living as an outlaw gave him a litany of experiences to immortalise in song. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t stay out of trouble for too long…
