Memphis: Rock DJ Uncovers Conspiracy Behind MLK Jr. Assassination

By Mike Hambrick

From Memphis, a new political thriller by Mike Hambrick:

"J. Edgar Hoover was standing at his window looking down at Pennsylvania Ave. It was his favorite spot for thought. Clyde Tolson was sitting dutifully in front of the Director's desk. The two men — who between them wielded more power than the President and Vice President of the United States — had been keeping tabs on King since 1955. In recent years, that effort had recently increased dramatically to include wiretaps, 24-hour surveillance and monitoring. Hoover also had some of King's closest and most trusted members of his inner circle on the FBI payroll. They provided intelligence on King's every move. "Clyde, I don't think we're getting timely intel from the folks we are paying inside the SCLC," Hoover fumed. "The people we're paying are closest to King. We should be getting more out of them."

When Matt Harrison arrives in Memphis in 1966 to advance his broadcast career as a radio DJ, he finds himself inadvertently caught up in a web of intrigue. It began years earlier when J. Edgar Hoover compiled his infamous "prayer list" — targeting JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy for "removal."

Fresh from a small town in Texas, Matt's world is turned upside down on his very first day in Memphis when he's stopped by a redneck cop — setting off a terrifying chain of events that reaches from the highest corridors of power in Washington D.C. to the sordid world of the Dixie Mafia.

Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and the rich musical history of the Mississippi Delta, "Memphis" is a gripping political thriller torn from the headlines of the 1960's when America found itself on the precipice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798987295427

Book preview

Prologue | February 2007

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

I was heading west out of D.C. on Highway 50 into Virginia coming into Upperville. As directed, I stopped at Hunter’s Head restaurant, where I had been told the bartender would provide further directions. I knew the place. It catered to the horse people in Northern Virginia. The food was good, but expensive. The bar was stocked with a great selection of single malts.

My name is Matthew Harrison, I said to the bartender. I believe you have something for me.

He reached under the bar and brought out a white envelope. He handed it to me and moved down to the next customer without saying a word.

I had been directed to drive back east nine miles to Middleburg and look for Sam Fred Road. I almost missed the left turn onto Sam Fred. The third mailbox on the right was a mile and half down. Inside the box was a folded sheet of paper.

So far, so good.

Following the instructions typed on the single piece of plain white paper, I was instructed to make my way towards Route 50. The wintry mix of sleet and rain continued to fall.

It was a tricky deal back to the east. A steep hill was right on top of me. As I was about to pull back out onto 50 headed west, my cell phone vibrated. It was a New York number. Familiar. It took me a beat or two before I put the number with a name. It was Ahmet Ertegun’s line. Ahmet died in December. I first met him when I was only 19. We stayed in contact, and I saw him often during the intervening years.

Ahmet Ertegun was a giant in the music business. He had founded Atlantic Records on borrowed money and a hope and a prayer. That was in the late 1940’s. Atlantic grew to become one of the most successful and respected record labels in the world. As he was to so many, Ahmet was my friend and mentor. His passing saddened me deeply.

This was likely Mica, Ahmet’s wife. I had heard that a memorial gathering was in the works. It would bring together a who’s who of powerful players. The music and entertainment industry would be well represented, of course, but also titans of industry, politicians and their power brokers, diplomats and even a crown prince or two, no doubt. Ahmet Ertegun was not your ordinary record executive.

This call from Mica tells me I will be there as well. I made a mental note to call her back.

I pulled out on Route 50 and turned back to the west again towards Middleburg. On both sides of the road sat some of the most expensive and exclusive real estate in America. Old money resides here. Names like Mellon, Scaife, Du Pont, and Rockefeller were not on any of the roadside mailboxes. But they were all here, safely tucked away in their turn-of-the-century mansions.

I kept my speed at 25 mph through the village. In three miles, I followed the detailed directions and turned left onto Rokeby Road. I went five miles as directed. At the curve, I took a right. I went down the farm road for a mile and a quarter through an open gate, then past a stand of trees, and finally to the old barn with a faded red metal roof. I reached into the pocket of my overcoat for a flashlight.

I wished my source had picked a more convenient location. Why not the basement of a D.C. parking garage? Hell, it was good enough for Deep Throat.

Tom Percy had insisted the meeting take place outside the District of Columbia. He was firm about that in his phone call two days earlier. Tom was a man accustomed to dictating terms. But there was also fear in his voice. It was that fear that convinced me to meet. In politics, fear is a validation.

Tom Percy and I had a history. It goes all the way back to my time in Memphis when I was first starting out. The Percy’s were a prominent political family from the Mississippi Delta. Tom’s great grandfather had been a U.S. Senator, as was his father before him. If you read the history of the 1927 Mississippi Flood, you’ll find that the Percy’s have a lot of death, destruction, and displacement for which to atone. Tom’s manic efforts to whitewash the family guilt had been a source of trouble for him before. I had a feeling this time he might be in over his head.

I turned the flashlight in the direction of a noise just in time to see a black cat dart through a half-open door. Not what I would call a good omen.

The white light of my halogen beam suddenly flickered and died. I knocked it against the palm of my hand hoping to revive the dead battery. It didn’t work. I was left totally in the dark. From beyond the doorway, the flash of a match provided enough light for me to see somebody lighting a lantern.

Come in, Mr. Harrison. I recognized the voice.

Tom Percy pulled a chair back from a small table in the center of the room and sat down. I think he referred to me as Mr. Harrison as a half assed effort to separate our past from the present. That didn’t work either. I stuffed the dead flashlight back in my pocket and walked through the door.

Please sit down, Mr. Harrison.

Percy motioned me to the other chair. The yellow glow of the lantern cast shadows on rows of faded blue and red ribbons covering an entire wall. They were legacies of equestrian champions from another era. The smell of rotted wood, mice feces and dust filled my nostrils.

Percy leaned back from the table and crossed his legs. He assumed his usual power demeanor. A bit out of context, I thought, considering the surroundings.

I apologize for the accommodations, Percy said. I am afraid they are not what either of us are accustomed to.

I moved the chair out from the table and sat down.

I’ve been in a barn before, I said.

Ah yes, of course. The cowboy from the hardscrabble plains of Texas transformed into an erudite and worldly TV news anchorman. I seem to have forgotten that.

I was having none of it.

Yeah, well let’s cut the crap, Tom. We’re in a barn now, at your suggestion I might add. You’ve been mysteriously off the radar for three weeks. In Washington, that’s a lifetime. I hope you’re here to tell me why.

Always the newsman, Mr. Harrison, just the facts.

I had had enough.

Look Tom, we both know how this works. You called me because you’re in trouble and you need me. I’m here because I want a story.

He twisted uncomfortably in his chair.

So, let’s stop the foreplay and get to it.

He reached down for a briefcase and pulled out several files stuffed with paper. He gently placed the files on the table between us.

You could have put it on a thumb drive, Tom, I said with equal amounts of sarcasm and scorn.

I could have, he said. But as you know, I’m a tad old-fashioned. Besides, then the information would be on a computer and hackable. That would not serve me well.

Even in the dim light of the lantern, I knew what the files contained. I had seen and read it all many times before. The paper trail of damning information on someone who had abused his position of power and was now vulnerable. The phone records, travel receipts, or phone transcripts that could kill a career or a marriage. All part of the Jekyll-and-Hyde stage play that seems to have a never-ending Washington run. On rare occasions, those secrets make their way onto the front pages of newspapers or the lead stories of the nightly news. But not often enough for my liking. Tom Percy knew that I was hungry, and yet I sensed that he needed me more than I needed him.

Percy was a man in his early 50’s. That night he appeared much older. His demeanor changed dramatically.

Alright Matthew, what I have here will bring down some of the most powerful men in Washington.

I remained stonefaced.

You know Tom, if they hate you enough, they will find legal grounds to screw you.

Tom took a couple of beats.

With these people, it’s not a courtroom I worry about.

I knew it was time to play my role. From the tone of Tom’s voice, the stakes couldn’t be higher. But as I waited for him to reveal whatever secrets were in those files, I wasn’t thinking of what that might mean for America. I was too busy contemplating what it might do for me. Fame, fortune, and above all the network news anchor chair that I had coveted since I broke into broadcasting, which had so far eluded me.

Okay Tom, I’m listening.

_______________________

As soon as I was back on hard pavement, I hit redial on Ahmed’s number. Mica answered.

Mica, it’s Matthew Harrison. I saw that you had called.

Yes, Matthew. I’m sure you’ve heard, but I wanted to tell you personally. There is a memorial service planned for Ahmet here in New York. I know he would have wanted you to be there.

Of course, I will be there, Mica.

Good. The service will be held at the Rose Theater in Lincoln Center. The Time Warner building. Your name will be on the list.

Thanks so much, Mica. You know what Ahmet meant to me. I loved him dearly.

I will see you in April then, Matthew. She clicked off.

I was deeply honored, and very proud.

Before long, I was on Highway 50 headed back east to Washington. It was 9:30. I hit speed dial for my producer Becky Percy, Tom Percy’s daughter.

Becky, it’s Matthew. I’m headed back to the studio. Just wanted to set your mind at ease, I’ll be there for the 11 o’clock news.

Thanks for the update, she said with more than a touch of sarcasm.

_______________________

Man hattan 2007

Tom Wolfe and his signature white suit were busy being seen. Helen Mirren’s grace and style were on display as she appeared to glide through the lobby. Henry Kissinger stood at one of the bars holding court with Bette Midler, Kid Rock, Ben E. King and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I saw David Geffen sidle up to join the unlikely grouping.

Eric Clapton, Stevie Nicks, and Keith Richards walked over to join Patti Smith, who was standing alone and looked more than a little uncomfortable.

And as I expected, several crown princes from the Gulf States were sprinkled among the gathering. The elegance of their whiter than white ankle-length kanduras was hard to miss. I always wondered how they kept those robes so clean. Oil money pays for a lot of good laundering I suppose. They added just the right touch for such an occasion.

Only Ahmet Ertegun could assemble such a diverse group of people.

The 150-foot glass wall of the Time Warner Center with its multi-level atriums provided unmatched views of Columbus Circle and Central Park. It had been the first major building to go up in Manhattan after 9/11. The Center straddles the border between Midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side. Location, location, location. A mixture of the wealthy and the wannabes frequent the designer boutiques and ritzy restaurants sprinkled through the building. At $1,000 per night, however, guests of the adjoining Mandarin Oriental Hotel tend not to be wannabes.

The Center’s glittering performing arts venue, the Rose Theater, also calls the Time Warner Center home. It was the venue that Mica had chosen for the tribute to her late husband, Ahmet Ertegun. The most sought-after invitation in town.

There was no reserved seating. Everyone wanted a good seat up front. So, a large line was already forming by those unaccustomed to waiting in lines.

Some of those gathered I knew. Many of them I had interviewed at least once during the course of my career. And I had known Ahmet for more than 30 years. He was a dear friend and a mentor. But even so, there was a familiar voice in my head wondering what the hell I was doing there. It’s a long way from a 500-watt radio station in Greenville, Texas.

As I basked in my usual sense of inadequacy, I noticed Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Dan Rather and Andrea Mitchell huddled, where else, at a bar station.

Brokaw I knew from my days at NBC in Washington. He had also roomed with my cousin at the University of South Dakota. Brian and I worked at competing local stations in D.C. We also shared the same talent agent for a while. Rather and I were both from Texas and we had come across each other from time to time. I never cared much for Andrea Mitchell. She dropped all pretense of credibility when she married the Crown Prince of the Establishment, Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. But it secured her access at every power table and salon from Cambridge to Georgetown. In Washington, access is king.

As I decided to walk over and join their little group, I was stopped in mid stride.

Matthew. It was Mica Ertegun. We did the air kiss embrace.

I am so pleased to see you here.

The group of news anchors took notice.

Nothing could have prevented me from being here, Mica. I’m honored. Thank you so much for the invitation.

There’s a small afterparty planned. I want you to come.

I gave the only answer there was: Absolutely.

Wonderful. The hotel penthouse suite.

I’ll be there.

She hurried off. I continued over to the anchor group. Before I got there, Andrea walked away. She must have sensed my distaste.

The three guys raised their eyebrows and gave me a look that said, WTF?

I get that a lot, I said.

They chuckled.

Well, Harrison, you must have known Ahmet quite well, Brokaw said with a degree of curiosity and just a touch of respect.

Yeah, I first met him when I was just a green kid, 19 years old. And as my dad would say, I didn’t know ‘come here’ from ‘sic ’um.’ An old Texas saying. You’ll appreciate that, Dan.

I’ll have to remember that one, he said, chuckling.

I was just starting a new job as a rock n’ roll DJ in Memphis. It’s not an exaggeration to say that if not for Ahmet, I would not be standing here today. Hard to believe, fellows, that was more than 40 years ago.

It was critical to understand that the two defining events of my generation were the battle for civil rights and America’s involvement in the Vietnam Conflict. My exposure to both at an early age shattered my naiveté and shook my confidence in America to the core. I became aware that the institutions of power — Congress, the military, the intelligence community, the law, and the office of the Presidency — were all capable of deceit at a level of depth and darkness that the average American in the 1960’s could not imagine. Our leaders violated our constitutional rights and regularly sanctioned murder, political assassinations, and the toppling of governments in countries around the world.

It was all wrapped in the lofty goal of protecting freedom, battling communism, and the continuation of the American way of life. That is how it was sold to the American people. In reality, it was driven by nothing more than a relentless pursuit of power and unconscionable greed. I learned that the hard way.

I remember the beginning of my journey as if it was yesterday. It all started in the Delta.

Chapter 1 | 1966

THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

"The Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel

and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg."

So reads a plaque in the lobby of that well-known Memphis hotel. That may or may not be true, but the sentiment is misleading at best. Most of the working poor of the Mississippi Delta will never see the Italian Renaissance lobby of the Peabody, nor encounter anybody who’s ever stayed there. The inscription on the plaque goes on to say that if you stand in the lobby long enough, you’ll see everybody who is anybody in the Delta.

The likelihood of any black person from the Delta staying in the hotel for a night is as remote as the possibility of the Mississippi River flowing north. But the phrase gives a romantic feel to the Delta, dripping with Southern aristocracy. Seems there has been a consistent effort through the years to put a shine on that tarnished coin.

The reality is that the Mississippi Delta is the land of the haves and the have-nots, where cotton has been and continues to be king. It’s a 220-mile-long, 85-mile-wide stretch of land that is one of the saddest sources of irony in the country. The Delta is 7,000 square miles of the richest farmland in the world, but home to some of the poorest people in America.

Cotton may have been king, but the music of the Delta was his mistress. The blues came straight out of the Delta cotton fields. It became the bedrock of so many different genres — jazz, rhythm and blues, rock n’ roll, and soul.

I had heard many stories about W.C. Handy, known as the Father of the Blues, from my blues professors at the Rabbit Hut in Dallas. Handy was a college-educated black man and a musician. In 1903, the story goes, he was sitting on a bench at the train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi when a lean, loose-jointed black vagrant carrying a guitar sat down next to him. He started playing while sliding a knife blade across the guitar strings. Handy said it was the strangest sound he had ever heard.

What’s that you’re playing? he asked the man.

Field-hollering that I always heard in the Delta cotton fields. Brought it here now so’s you could hear it.

The hollers were a distraction from the endless backbreaking labor. The hollers echoed from the cotton fields to the porches of sharecropper shacks throughout the South. From there, they made their way to colored only juke joints and nightclubs. But the story goes that when it reached the ears of W.C. Handy in 1903, this was the seminal event that would launch the blues nationwide and change American music forever.

Chapter 2 | 1966

THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

Irony in the South is as common as night and day. You accept the pure white light of Jesus during the day while the night brings the darkness of destruction and evil. There are times when there is little distinction between night and day in the fields of the Delta where sharecroppers are required to pick the cotton fields by the light of the full moon. The practice is a holdover from the slave era.

Elmore and Eugela Peterson had been dirt-poor sharecroppers all their lives. They had been picking cotton just outside Clarksdale since they took their first steps. For the Petersons, this day was no different than any other except for the heat. It was a strange year. The weather had gone from winter straight to summer, bypassing spring. Even by Delta standards, it was a scorcher.

It was a day without clouds, no respite from the sun. As dusk approached, it still felt as hot as it had at high noon.

Alright everybody, it be dark soon, Elmore announced to his family. Best we leave this here field for now. Full moon be coming up tonight. We be back here soon enough.

The sun had dipped below the horizon. Looking west across the flat cotton field, the sky was streaked with a dark purple hue. The Petersons had been toiling in the fields since before first light of day. It was a typical workday for them.

In the Delta, sharecropping is the modern version of slavery. Here’s how that works. Lacking capital and land of their own, former slaves were forced to work for large landowners. Plantations were divided into 20-to-50-acre plots suitable for farming by a single family. In exchange for land, a cabin, and supplies, sharecroppers agreed to raise cotton. To pay off the debt for the land, the croppers were required to give half the crop to their landlord each year until the debt was paid. The black sharecroppers kept the other half to sell. But it never worked out that way. The high interest rates charged by the landowners for the land and for goods bought on credit transformed sharecropping into a system of perpetual, regressive poverty.

It wasn’t always that way. What the freed men and women had wanted above all else following emancipation was land on which they could support their own families. After the Civil War, all the way through Reconstruction right up until the end of the 19th century, blacks made up two-thirds of the independent farmers in the Mississippi Delta.

But in 1890, the white-dominated Mississippi state legislature had enough with agrarian equality. They passed a new state constitution that effectively disenfranchised most blacks in the state. During the next three decades, black farmers lost most of their land due to tight credit and political oppression. They were forced into sharecropping and tenant farming to survive. Little had changed in the Delta since.

Elmore Peterson was leading his family out of the cotton field behind their sharecropper shack right off Highway 61. His 10-year-old twin daughters, Cassandra and Melinda, were walking ahead of him while his 14-year-old son Daniel lagged behind. Their mother, Eugela, walked with Elmore.

Our daughters bled last night. The first time, she informed her husband.

Ain’t they a bit young for that?

It’s a bad sign, Elmore. I got a bad feelin’. Evil comin’.

No need to worry now. Mr. Percy says he won’t let nothing happen to our little girls. That fat-assed deputy sheriff may get the others but he ain’t gonna take our girls. Mr. Percy, he promised.

Eugela continued to walk with tears rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes were dead as coal.

I had a dream, Elmore. It’s gonna be bad. I seen evil. I got the feelin’. I want to keep the girls out of the field tonight.

Alright, Eugela. That be fine… Just fine.

Chapter 3 | 1966

NORTHEAST TEXAS

It wasn’t easy, but some months back I had convinced my father, M.L. Harrison Sr., to let me leave the family ranch in West Texas to finish my last year of high school at the other side of the state.

It wasn’t for scholastic reasons that I wanted to get out of Presidio County. Far from it. It was the lure of a job in radio. In January, I sent an audition tape to Leo Hackney. He was the General Manager of KGVL Radio in Greenville. Two months later, I received a letter saying I had the job if I wanted it. It didn’t matter to me that it was a tiny 500-watt station in a backwater town of only 25,000 people. What mattered is that it had a microphone for me to talk into.

After some heated family discussions, my father finally relented. That fall, I moved to East Texas to begin my broadcasting career. As an added bonus, Greenville was only 50 miles outside Dallas and big-time radio.

Dallas has always been known for its mean bars. It’s been that way since the legendary gangster Benny Binion cut a deal with the Chicago Mafia, bringing eastern organized crime to the Big D. It was a sweetheart deal for Benny. He agreed to share the profits from his operations in Dallas which included gambling, prostitution, drugs, and racketeering. In exchange, he got ownership of a hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for Benny, another local gangster, Herb Noble, got wind of the deal, which did not include him. For the next five years, the streets of Dallas were a battleground much like Chicago in the 20’s. Noble survived many attempts on his life and multiple gunshot wounds until one day in March 1951 when he went to check the mailbox at his ranch north of the city. A bomb blast scattered body parts over nearly an acre of the dusty landscape. Before long, the Vegas strip had a new establishment, Binion’s Horseshoe Casino. That’s just the way things were done.

Back then I knew very little of the ways of organized crime in America. That was soon to change in ways I would never would’ve imagined.

Chapter 4 | 1966

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Deputy Director of the FBI Clyde Tolson had spent months seeking out the ideal scapegoat. The Director had been adamant about the criteria. The candidate had to be fairly nondescript; former military, with a criminal record, a low IQ, and currently housed in an American prison. It didn’t matter where as long as the warden was willing to play ball with the Director.

Patrick Putman was an FBI agent who enjoyed the rare trust of both Tolson and the Director. He was J. Edgar Hoover’s liaison to Army General William Yarborough, who was a crucial component in the plan to check off the next set of initials on the Director’s Prayer List.

Tolson flipped the switch on his desk intercom.

You can send agent Putnam in now.

He pushed the button that released the electric lock on the office door. Putman entered and took a seat, clutching two files marked Top Secret. Putnam resembled most of the agents handpicked by Hoover. Young, physically fit, educated, and not too tall. He wore the required starched white shirt, dark suit, and a plain necktie.

Tolson signed two documents before acknowledging the agent’s presence.

What do you have for me, agent Putnam?

The veteran agent placed the files on his boss’s desk.

Sir, I have identified the perfect prisoner. He fits the Director’s desired profile to a tee.

He handed the Deputy Director a photo with a one-page background report attached. Tolson studied it for a moment, nodded, and looked up for the first time.

Sir, as you can see in the second file, the warden’s name is Harold Swenson. The prisoner is a three time-loser. Habitual criminal. He is serving time for a nonviolent crime, he is former military — warden says he will follow instructions.

Tolson smiled while Putnam relaxed and leaned back in his chair. The Deputy Director closed both files and stacked them neatly to the side, signaling the meeting had come to an end.

Putnam stood up.

Well done, Agent Putnam. The Director will be pleased. That’s all.

After Putnam exited, Tolson turned his attention back to the file. He reviewed the photos and documents one more time and pressed the intercom.

See if the Director has a moment.

Chapter 5 | 1966

NORTHEAST TEXAS

My first exposure to the blues came via a down-and out DJ named Jackie Rabbit. The Rabbit was on the downside of a mediocre career when he ended up at that little station in Greenville. I had listened to Jackie for years whenever my radio picked up the signal from his old Dallas station. I wished I could sound like him, tried to sound like him. When he showed up in Greenville, however, I had mixed feelings.

Too much booze and weed had led to a lot of missed shifts and it wasn’t long before Jackie lost his prime slot. By the time he sobered up, the Rabbit was working the noon-to-6 shift playing Mantovani and Percy Faith. Rock and roll was only permitted at night, from 7 PM until sign off. Since I was still a senior in high school and couldn’t work a day shift, I was the nighttime rocker.

The Rabbit once told me, I would die today if I knew I would come back as a Delta bluesman. That was a radical thing for a sane white man to say in 1966 America. No one I knew wanted to die and come back as a black man. That was how much the Rabbit loved the blues.

But here he was making an hour and half drive every day just to work the noon-to-6 slot at a shithole station located on the outer edges of oblivion. Even if he couldn’t play the music he loved on the radio, he could play it for us. He was no B.B. King, but the Rabbit wasn’t a bad blues guitarist. Since the early 50’s, the Fender Stratocaster had been the guitar of choice for some of the greats. Eric Clapton played one, Jeff Beck too. So, naturally the Rabbit played a Strat.

Jackie’s house in Dallas’s Oak Cliff neighborhood had long become known as the Rabbit Hut. It was a gathering place for struggling musicians, some of whom had been exposed to the new psychedelic music scene in San Francisco. A couple of others had ventured to the Windy City to soak up the Chicago blues. And then there was Memphis. If you hadn’t made the 500-mile trip to the Mississippi Delta and spent time there absorbing the music, then you might as well check your guitar at the door. Maybe I got a pass because of my age, but I was the lone exception among the regulars, a varied assortment of Dallas DJ’s, blues enthusiasts, and some really good guitarists. You might say the Hut was a salon for the blues.

My cool had gone to a whole different level. Now I was hanging with some real hip people in the Dallas music scene. My wheat jeans were replaced with denim bell bottoms, I swapped madras button downs for tie-dyed tee shirts and my old crew cut was now well below my ears. Yeah, real cool.

Chapter 6 | 1966

DALLAS, TEXAS

The Rabbit Hut came with an added bonus along with the music history: drugs. Mostly marijuana, occasionally downers and sometimes cocaine. I had started to spend most of my Saturday afternoons and evenings at the Hut getting high and listening to music.

It was at the Hut that I first heard Mississippi Delta blues. The music collided with my brain like a round from a .357 magnum. Lead Belly, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Mississippi John Hurt, Elmore James, and many others took hold of my soul in a way nothing else ever had.

The Hut was where I got my master’s degree in the blues. My teachers were the real deal. One I remember well was R.L. Griffin. His blues knowledge was deep and wide. R.L. was from Kilgore in far East Texas close to the Louisiana border. One day while R.L. was holding court, I asked him an innocuous question: What is it that makes the blues endure?

He looked up from his weed-induced haze as though he had been waiting for somebody to ask that very question.

"Turn on the radio and listen. It don’t matter you like country, or pop, doo-wop, or jazz… the whole spectrum of popular music has the greasy fingerprints of the blues. From the lovesick cowboys to the Bible-thumping gospel singers and rock n’ roll one hit wonders, even the nameless singer of commercial jingles on the radio, you gonna hear the