Walter E. Lewis swept the streets of Memphis for 44 years, up before dawn, largely invisible to the city around him. Then, in his seventies and eighties, he opened for the Rolling Stones, sat on the couch with Johnny Carson, acted in a Burt Reynolds movie, and was profiled in Playboy. Known as Furry Lewis, he was a foundational country blues guitarist whose life bridged the 19th-century origins of the Delta blues and the neon pop culture of the 1970s. This episode explores how a devastating accident and a municipal day job inadvertently secured one man's legacy.

Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, with a birth year debated between 1893 and 1899, Lewis moved to Memphis at seven, was working as a musician by 1908, and landed dates with W.C. Handy's orchestra. Around 1916 or 1917, hopping a freight train near Du Quoin, Illinois, despite having cas ...