Before Mike Judge created Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, he spent about a year from 1989 to 1990 playing bass in a touring blues band. This episode moves the spotlight a few feet over to the man leading that band: Anson Funderburgh, born in 1954 in Plano, Texas, a master guitarist who fused the aggressive engine of Chicago blues with the swinging, spacious phrasing of Texas blues over a career spanning more than four decades.

We trace his 1976 recording with the Bees Knees, the 1977 formation of Anson Funderburgh and the Rockets with Mark Hickman, David Watson and Darrell Nulisch, and the 1981 debut Talk to You by Hand, the very first release on New Orleans label Black Top Records. The conversation explains why a startup label anchored itself on a bandleader known for tight rehearsals and a fully realized sound, how the 1985 departure of Nulisch led to a 20-year partnership with Mississippi harmonica player and singer Sam Myers, and how the band landed on NBC, in the film China Moon and in 21 Grams. After Myers died of throat cancer in 2006, Funderburgh evolved into a producer and mentor, working with John Nemeth, Danny Franchi and others, supporting the Blues Foundation’s HART Fund through The Mill Block Blues, and touring with the Golden State Lone Star Blues Revue.

• What Chicago blues and Texas blues actually sound like and how Funderburgh combined them
• Anchor tenant, not first pancake: why Black Top Records launched with the Rockets
• Surviving the loss of a frontman by bringing in Sam Myers for a two-decade golden era
• How a revolving cast of musicians never diluted the band’s core identity
• Producing the next generation and funding a safety net for aging blues musicians