The driving guitar riff and the original Mystery Train that helped define Elvis Presley's rockabilly era were both photocopied from the same artist, a velvet-voiced blues innovator who has been almost entirely erased from the headline of that era. This episode traces Herman Junior Parker from a muddy origin on the Eastover plantation near Bobo, Mississippi, through a teenage apprenticeship on harmonica with Sonny Boy Williamson II and a 1949 stint working for Howlin' Wolf, into the Memphis collective known as the Beale Streeters alongside B.B. King, Bobby Bland and Rosco Gordon.

We examine how Parker carved out a calm, honeyed vocal frequency instead of competing with louder peers, formed the Blue Flames with guitarist Pat Hare in 1951, and recorded for Modern Records after Ike Turner heard them in 1952. At Sun Records in 1953, Feelin' Good ...