Was he born in 1905, 1910, 1914, or 1924? Was his name James Williams, James Williamson, or John William Henderson? The life of blues slide guitarist Homesick James resists the tidy record-keeping we expect, and this episode sifts through the shifting facts to trace a career that spanned nearly a century, from self-taught teenager at rural Tennessee country dances to electric pioneer on the South Side of Chicago and revered elder on 1970s European stages.

We explain what slide guitar and open tunings actually do, why trading a tuning was an act of trust in a world without instruction books, and examine his fiercely debated claim that he was Elmore James' older cousin who bought him his first guitar and taught him slide. We follow his 1932 move to Chicago during the Great Migration, his early adoption of the electric guitar by 1938, the 1952 ...