Fenton Robinson wrote and played the hidden DNA of the blues, then watched fate and the industry take the credit. Born in 1935 on a farm near Greenwood, Mississippi, he moved to Memphis in 1953, cut his first single Tennessee Woman in 1957, recorded the future standard As the Years Go Passing By in 1959, and played the defining guitar parts on Larry Davis's original 1958 recording of Texas Flood as an uncredited session man. This episode explores the jazz-influenced phrasing, minor sevenths and dominant ninths that made his Chicago blues guitar style so distinctive after his 1962 move north.

We unpack the 1967 recording of Somebody Loan Me a Dime for the Palos label, the historic snowstorm that froze its nationwide distribution and killed its radio window, and the devastating year of 1969, when Boz Scaggs released a misattributed cover feat ...