Katie Webster, born Kathryn Jewel Thorne in Houston, Texas, on January 11, 1936, forged her musical identity in Louisiana as a session pianist and percussionist for independent labels like Excello and Goldband, backing swamp blues artists such as Lightnin' Slim and Lonesome Sundown. Those studios were factory floors for regional jukebox hits, and her job was to sit down, find the groove instantly, and anchor the sluggish, tremolo-soaked swamp blues tempo with a relentless eight-to-the-bar boogie-woogie left hand. By the 1960s that talent carried her into the big leagues playing piano with Otis Redding, until his death in a 1967 plane crash sent her into semi-retirement.

This episode traces her unlikely resurgence in the 1980s, when European audiences treated American blues with the reverence of classical music and she began recording for th ...