Through the 1960s, a Louisiana man ran his own trucking business, hauling freight across the state to keep his family afloat. At the same time, his records were crossing the Atlantic and shaping the repertoire of the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Kinks, and one of his instrumentals even gave the Moody Blues their name. Born James Moore in Lobdell, Louisiana, in 1924 and orphaned as a teenager, Slim Harpo worked construction and the New Orleans docks as a longshoreman before picking up the harmonica under the influence of Jimmy Reed and playing Baton Rouge bars as Harmonica Slim alongside his brother-in-law, Lightnin’ Slim.

This episode follows his 1957 breakthrough with producer J.D. Miller and Excello Records, the name change suggested by his wife Lovell Moore, who also co-wrote many of his songs without credit, and hits like I’m a King Bee, Rainin’ in My Heart, and Baby Scratch My Back. It unpacks what made swamp blues sound so humid and laid-back, how country vocal inflections and rock and roll drumming made his music irresistible to British teenagers, and how a work injury cut his life short in January 1970, just before his first European tour.

• Why the harmonica was the practical instrument for a dock worker, and how playing dive bars taught Harpo to hold a working-class crowd
• The uncredited role of Lovell Moore in naming Slim Harpo and shaping his songs, and how the 1950s record business erased collaborators like her
• Rainin’ in My Heart reaching number 17 R&B and number 34 pop in 1961, and Baby Scratch My Back hitting number one R&B and number 16 pop in 1966
• The split with J.D. Miller over finances and creative control, the move to Nashville with producer Robert Holmes, and the hit Tip On In
• His death at 45 from a heart attack linked to a punctured lung, his burial in Port Allen, and the Slim Harpo Music Awards that fund music in Baton Rouge schools