Tommy McLennan's rough, energetic guitar found its way onto Bob Dylan's 1962 debut album, yet he died in Chicago in near obscurity and lay in an unmarked grave for over 50 years. Born January 4, 1905 in Durant, Mississippi, he played juke joints where a quiet melody could not survive the room, then recorded for Bluebird Records from 1939 to 1942, cutting Bottle It Up and Go, New Highway No. 51, Shake 'Em On Down and Whiskey Head Woman.

This episode explains why a three-year recording run was a triumph in the extractive race-records economy, explores his friendship with Robert Petway and the nickname Sugar that peer Booker Miller knew him by, and unpacks Big Bill Broonzy's observation that he changed chords whenever he felt like it. We trace how the 1959 Folkways compilation The Country Blues rescued his shellac-era recordings for the folk r ...