Lesley Riddle

Lesley "Esley" Riddle was an African American musician. Riddle was born in Burnsville, North Carolina, United States. He grew up with his paternal grandparents near Kingsport, Tennessee, not far from the Virginia border. While working as a young man at a cement plant, in August 1927, he tripped on an auger. The resulting injury entailed the amputation of his right leg at the knee. While he recovered, he took up the guitar, developing an innovative picking and slide technique. Soon, he was collaborating with other musicians from Sullivan and Scott counties, including Steve Tarter, Harry Gay, Brownie McGhee and John Henry Lyons. In December 1928, Riddle met A.P. Carter, who founded the Carter Family country band. The Carter Family had become known for their recordings at the Bristol Sessions in August 1927. Riddle began to divide his time between Kingsport and the Carter home in Maces Spring, Virginia. Riddle and Carter embarked on song-collecting trips around the region: Riddle would act as a "human tape recorder," memorizing the melody while Carter gathered lyrics. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesley_...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)