Henry "Mule" Townsend was born in October 1909 in Shelby, Mississippi, to a father who played guitar and accordion. After the family moved near Cairo, Illinois, and the home turned abusive, nine-year-old Henry ran away and hoboed alone to St. Louis, where he took guitar lessons from a local figure named Dudlow Joe and paid his way as an auto mechanic, shoe shiner, hotel manager, and salesman. That forced self-reliance and the noisy, piano-driven urban scene shaped a sturdy, rhythmic guitar style and earned him a nickname that in the 1920s signaled a robust build and a resilient character. By the late 1920s he was touring and recording with pianist Walter Davis, working with J.D. Short, learning piano himself, and in 1929 cutting his first session for Columbia Records in Chicago.

This episode traces a professional career that ran for nine co ...