The fry cook behind the counter in The Blues Brothers, married to Aretha Franklin’s character, was not a Hollywood character actor. He was Matthew Tyler Murphy, known as Matt Guitar Murphy, a foundational Chicago blues guitarist born December 29 in Sunflower, Mississippi, and raised in Memphis, where his father worked at the Peabody Hotel. This episode explores how a man who spent decades making other people sound better became globally famous in a suit and sunglasses next to two comedians.

The conversation follows his 1948 move to Chicago and immediate work with Howlin’ Wolf and Little Junior Parker, his 1950s sessions with Ike Turner, his central role on Memphis Slim’s 1959 album At the Gate of Horn, his recordings with Chuck Berry, and his work with Koko Taylor, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Otis Rush, and Willie Dixon. It then covers the 1963 American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe, his 1970s partnership with James Cotton, the night John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd saw him play, and a late solo career that ran until his death in 2018.

• How the blues electrified as it moved from Mississippi front porches to loud post-war Chicago clubs, and how Murphy’s playing evolved with it
• Why Freddie King said his 1960 instrumental Hideaway was based on Murphy’s driving rhythmic technique
• The strategic case for staying a sideman: steady paychecks, industry respect, and shaping the sound without carrying the act
• His solo albums Way Down South (1990), The Blues Don’t Bother Me (1996), and Lucky Charm (2000), plus the Cort MGM-1 signature guitar of which only 78 were sold
• His 2002 stroke and return to performing, 2012 Blues Hall of Fame induction, marriage to Kathy Hemrick, the live album Last Call, and his death in Miami at 88