Johnny Copeland spent two decades grinding through Houston clubs and juke joints, building a reputation as a master of Texas electric blues, only to watch disco and the turntable wipe out the live band economy that fed him. Instead of quitting, he made a counterintuitive move to New York City in 1976, the very birthplace of the music that displaced him, and walked into a market vacuum that led to Rounder Records, a W.C. Handy Award, a Grammy and collaborations with Albert Collins, Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan. This episode treats his life as a study in adaptation and the long game.

We start with his birth in Haynesville, Louisiana on March 27, 1937, the T-Bone Walker influence that shaped his swinging, horn-like guitar phrasing, and early records for Duke, Mercury, Golden Eagle and All Boy that cast him as a vocalist while his guitar  ...