Through the 1960s, a Louisiana man ran his own trucking business, hauling freight across the state to keep his family afloat. At the same time, his records were crossing the Atlantic and shaping the repertoire of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Kinks, and one of his instrumentals even gave the Moody Blues their name. Born James Moore in Lobdell, Louisiana, in 1924 and orphaned as a teenager, Slim Harpo worked construction and the New Orleans docks as a longshoreman before picking up the harmonica under the influence of Jimmy Reed and playing Baton Rouge bars as Harmonica Slim alongside his brother-in-law, Lightnin' Slim.

This episode follows his 1957 breakthrough with producer J.D. Miller and Excello Records, the name change suggested by his wife Lovell Moore, who also co-wrote many of his songs without credit, and hits like I'm  ...