A shotgun blast to the face destroyed his eyes in the 1920s, yet street lore says Blind Joe Reynolds could aim and fire a pistol by sound alone. This deep dive pieces together the fractured biography of a transient Delta bluesman whose birth year bounces between 1900 and 1904, whose birthplace is listed as both Tallulah, Louisiana and Arkansas, and who performed under aliases like Joe Sheppard and Joe Leonard while evading police and personal enemies. It explores how neuroplasticity turned his hearing into a sonar system and why the bottleneck slide technique suited a guitarist who could no longer see the frets.

Discovered in 1929 by Jackson, Mississippi talent scout H.C. Speir, Reynolds recorded four tracks for Paramount in Grafton, Wisconsin, including Outside Woman Blues and Ninety-Nine Blues, then four more for Victor in Memphis a year  ...