Luther Tucker was born in Memphis on January 20, 1936, played his first guitar built by his carpenter father, and received a Sears Silvertone from his boogie-woogie pianist mother, who bought it to keep him out of trouble. After the family moved to Chicago when he was nine, he came up alongside Freddie King, Magic Sam, and Otis Rush, and at 16 fell under the wing of Robert Lockwood Jr., who went to the musicians' union and promised to act as his guardian so the teenager could play the clubs.

This episode explores how Lockwood taught Tucker to read music and use minor, diminished, ninth, and 13th chords, how he played bass lines on a tuned-down guitar before the electric bass existed, and how he became the studio backbone for Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, and Snooky Pryor. It fol ...