In 1930s Clarksdale, Mississippi, crowds on the Sunflower River bridge reportedly could not tell which guitarist on the opposite banks was Robert Johnson and which was his teenage protege. That protege was Robert Lockwood Jr., born in 1915 in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, whose mother Estella was romantically involved with Johnson for about a decade. This episode traces a seventy-plus-year career that began as the stepson of the blues, saddled with the resented nickname Robert Jr., and ended with a National Heritage Fellowship, honorary doctorates, and a Grammy Award.

We start with the church organ Lockwood played at eight in his father's church and how polyphonic thinking let him treat the guitar as a miniature piano. From fish fries around Helena, Arkansas, we move to 1941 and King Biscuit Time on KFFA with Sonny Boy Williamson II, a daily br ...