Charlie Musselwhite was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, and moved to Memphis at age three, coming of age in the 1950s as rockabilly, country, and rhythm and blues collided into early rock and roll. While Sun Studio packaged that sound for a mass teenage audience, Charlie was running moonshine in a 1950 Lincoln, digging ditches, pouring concrete, and seeking out unamplified street-level bluesmen like Will Shade and Furry Lewis. Chasing a heavier, truer sound, he followed Highway 51 north to Chicago, slept in the basement of Bob Koester's Jazz Record Mart, and drove an exterminator truck through every South Side alley, mapping the juke joints and basement bars where he would soon sit in with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Buddy Guy.

This episode explains the physical, amplified mechanics of Chicago blues harmonica, from the tightly cupped bu ...