Hit the Road Jack is one of the most recognizable upbeat anthems in American music, but the man who wrote it never sang from a place of swagger. This episode traces the life of Percy Mayfield, the songwriter his peers called the poet laureate of the blues. Born in Louisiana in 1920 with an early gift for poetry, Mayfield moved to Los Angeles in 1942, recorded Two Years of Torture for Swingtime Records in 1947, and refused to water down his gentle blues ballads for the crossover pop market. After moving to Specialty Records, his 1950 single Please Send Me Someone to Love went to number one on the R&B charts, launched a string of six top 10 hits including Lost Love and The Big Question, and put him on the 1951 Cavalcade of Jazz bill at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles alongside Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton and Jimmy Witherspoon.

In 1952, ri ...