Lesley Riddle

Country music may owe its very existence in part to a one-legged African-American guitar player named Lesley Riddle. Riddle was born on June 13, 1905, in Burnsville, NC. As a young man he worked in the local cement plant, where an unfortunate accident cost him his right leg at the knee. During his convalescence Riddle learned to play guitar, developing a unique picking technique and a biting slide style. A.P. Carter, patriarch of the Carter Family, met Riddle in Kingsport, TN, in 1928, learning "Cannonball" from him. Carter began using Riddle as a source for traditional materi...