In 1962, at the height of the folk and blues revival, researchers finally tracked down a missing legend of the 1930s blues scene working a quiet factory job in Chicago. They offered him adoring young audiences and a lucrative return to the stage. He shrugged, said he had no interest, and went back to his shift. That man was James Kokomo Arnold, a reluctant pioneer whose slide guitar and lyrics became the raw open-source code behind Sweet Home Chicago, Milk Cow Blues and the phrase dust my broom. This episode traces his chronological journey from Lovejoy Station, Georgia, where even his birth year is disputed between 1901 and 1896.

We follow Arnold through farm work in Buffalo, steel mills in Pittsburgh, and a profitable Chicago bootlegging operation during Prohibition, with a brief 1930 Memphis detour to record two sides for Victor as Gitfiddle Jim. When repeal wiped out his business in 1933, he commodified his guitar out of necessity, and an introduction from Kansas Joe McCoy to Decca’s Mayo Williams led to the September 1934 hit Old Original Kokomo Blues. We unpack his upside-down left-handed slide technique, the 88 sides he cut for flat fees through May 1938, his direct influence on Robert Johnson, and why he walked away for good and died largely anonymous in November 1968.

• How flipping a right-handed guitar upside down created his driving, chaotic rhythm and rapid-fire vocals
• The flat-fee race records economy that paid roughly 10 to 15 dollars per song with no royalties
• Robert Johnson’s adaptations of Old Original Kokomo Blues, Milk Cow Blues and Sagefield Woman Blues
• Sissy Man Blues, a 1934 record openly addressing bisexuality that was covered by Josh White, George Noble and Connie McLean’s Rhythm Boys
• Milk Cow Blues traveling from Cliff Bruner to Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, the Kinks, Aerosmith and Willie Nelson while Arnold punched a clock