Marion Walter Jacobs was born in Marksville, Louisiana, without a birth certificate, quit school and left home by age 12, and survived by busking on the streets of New Orleans, Memphis, Helena and St. Louis alongside veterans like Sonny Boy Williamson II, Sunnyland Slim and Honeyboy Edwards. When he arrived in Chicago in 1946, electric guitars were drowning out the acoustic harmonica. This episode explains how he cupped a small microphone with his harp, plugged it into a PA system or guitar amplifier, pushed the tubes past their limits and turned distortion into a revolutionary new voice.

We follow his 1947 debut on the tiny Ora-Nelle label, his years defining the harmonica sound of Muddy Waters’ band, the first amplified harp on record on Country Boy in 1951, and the 1952 Checker Records instrumental Juke, cut in a single take and still the only harmonica instrumental to top the Billboard R&B chart. We also trace 14 top ten hits including My Babe, the alcoholism and violent temper that drove away his band the Aces, the 1967 European tour that yielded the only known footage of him performing, and his death at 37 in February 1968.

• Why his birth year shifted between 1923 and 1930 on official documents, and what that says about his hustle
• How swing and saxophonist Louis Jordan inspired him to replace chugging chords with soaring single-note melodies
• The truth behind the myth that he toured the UK with the Rolling Stones, refuted by Keith Richards himself
• His influence on Paul Butterfield, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and Kim Wilson
• The 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction that made him the only artist ever inducted specifically for harmonica