He was born John Len Chapman in Memphis in 1915, signed his contracts as Peter Chapman, and stepped onto stages from Chicago to Paris as Memphis Slim. This episode explores how one pianist used a maze of legal and stage identities to survive the most exploitative eras of the music business, from the loud, unamplified honky-tonks and gambling joints of West Memphis and the Missouri bootheel in the 1930s to his 1939 arrival in Chicago, where he replaced the late Joshua Altheimer in Big Bill Broonzy's band and became the go-to session pianist for Sonny Boy Williamson, Washboard Sam and Jazz Gillum.

We follow Bluebird producer Lester Melrose's decision to brand him Memphis Slim, the post-war pivot to jump blues with the House Rockers across a dizzying string of independent labels, the 1948 number one R&B hit Messin' Around, and the 1947 son ...