A Southern minister is assigned to a poor church in California where the congregation is drifting away and the church itself is scheduled for demolition.

The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.

To help with an upcoming election, a bookstore clerk is indicted for selling obscene material. The defense attorneys need to find the mystery of the original publication of the book.

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.