A teenager expelled from a theological seminary for playing ragtime piano went on to build the rhythmic engine of boogie-woogie and, decades later, the sound that unlocked Ray Charles. Charles Edward Davenport was born in Anniston, Alabama, in 1894, one of eight children, and started playing piano around age twelve over the objections of a father who sent him to seminary to cleanse the urge. After his expulsion he joined a traveling carnival, learning to play loud enough to compete with barkers and rides, then moved into vaudeville as an accompanist for singers Dora Carr and Ivy Smith, recording for Vocalion and working as a talent scout alongside figures like Tampa Red.

This episode breaks down Cow Cow Blues, named for the cowcatcher on a steam locomotive, and how its rolling eight-to-the-bar left hand became the blueprint for boogie-woogi ...