The person driving your Chicago Transit Authority bus might be an internationally touring, award-nominated blues star. Toronto Cannon, born on Valentine’s Day 1968 and raised on the South Side near the Robert Taylor Homes and the legendary Theresa’s Lounge, did not buy his first guitar until age 22, and his first musical pursuit was reggae rather than blues. That syncopated detour gave him a rhythmic attack all his own when he entered the club circuit in 1996 as a sideman.

This episode follows his five years backing Tommy McCracken, Wayne Baker Brooks, L.V. Banks and Joanna Connor, the formation of the Cannonball Express in 2001, a self-released debut in 2007, Delmark albums Leaving Mood and John the Conquer Root, and the 2015 Alligator Records signing and Chicago Blues Festival headline slot. We examine how he used weekends and vacation days to tour Mexico, South Africa, Armenia and Europe while driving a bus, and why that job became his laboratory for songwriting.

• Growing up in the shadow of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells and starting late anyway
• What reggae guitar taught him about the space between the notes
• The Chicago Way, co-produced by Alligator founder Bruce Iglauer, and its Album of the Year nomination
• Modern murder ballads and cinematic storytelling that push past blues cliches
• The Preacher, the Politician or the Pimp, Shut Up and Play, and a question about automation and the future of working-class art