Picture a 1930s Chicago nightclub: a performer in an expensive gown and fine jewelry, picking guitar and singing over the roar of the crowd, chewing tobacco with a spittoon at her feet and a pocket knife or pistol within reach. That was Lizzie Douglas, better known as Memphis Minnie. This episode follows her from a 13-year-old runaway busking on Beale Street in 1910 to one of the foundational guitar-wielding architects of the electric blues.

We cover her discovery in 1929 while playing for dimes outside a Memphis barbershop with Kansas Joe McCoy, the Columbia Records executive who renamed the pair on the spot, and the runaway success of "Bumble Bee," which she re-recorded five times to meet demand. We revisit the legendary 1933 cutting contest with Big Bill Broonzy, her switch to the electric guitar around 1941 and the hit "Me and My Chauff ...