For the most part, my early years were spent in metropolitan New York where, under my father's influence, I became a fanatic. I sat in the peanut gallery at Birdland, cover charge a dollar and Cokes a dime. My gods were Monk, Miles, and Mingus. My disdain was directed at anything popular. Bop was high art; pop was slop. I was a pre-teen elitist who could recite the members of all five herds shepherded by Woody Herman. Then, when I was twelve, my dad was transferred. He was a traveling salesman whose product, men's fine felt hats, was a remnant from another era.

Texas was from another era. When we moved there in the mid-fifties, I saw it as no man's land. I was depressed in Dallas, a suburban city with no street life and strict segregation. The teen culture was fixated on football and cars. Country music dominated radio, and jazz clubs didn't exist. Only in the far reaches of black South Dallas, some twenty miles from my home, could you catch an after-hours jam session. The only new music - new for me - that caught my ear was rhythm and blues and gospel. Even though R&B was popular, I couldn't resist its pulsating heart. I liked it in spite of myself. Little Richard and Chuck Berry assumed the stature of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. My cathedral of high art came crashing down. At the Sportatorium, a cavernous venue used for wrestling matches, I saw Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, the Dixie Hummingbirds, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. The fervor of gospel, along with the fervor of R&B, got all over me.

In my second year of high school, at age fifteen, I started writing for the Thomas Jefferson Reveille, the student newspaper. The faculty advisor saw that I was drawn to non-conventional stories. Soon, she let me pick my own topics. I immediately chose music. I started writing record reviews, nearly all of them positive. Early on, I realized that my natural bent was for celebration. I liked to praise. When I didn't like something, I didn't write particularly well. When I loved something, my prose improved. She suggested that instead of writing record reviews, I review a live performance. "Better yet," she said, "you might even interview the performer."

I jumped at the idea. I had long imagined what it might be like to engage Ray Charles or Bo Diddley in conversation - or at least sit in the same room with them. They would be open and friendly, appreciative of my interest in them, impressed with my knowledge of their music. We would become instant friends, and they'd invite me on their tours as a special guest. The problem, though, was that this spring neither Ray nor Bo were due in Dallas. But Jimmy Reed was.

Back in the fifties, Jimmy Reed ruled the Texas airwaves. In my mind, Reed bridged the gap between backcountry and big city blues. I had begun listening to Delta masters like Robert Johnson and Charley Patton at the same time I was discovering urbanites like T-Bone Walker and B.B. King. Reed seemed to have one foot in each camp. He sounded primitive as all hell, but the bad boys in my high school with their blue suede shoes had him blasting from their customized Chevys. They weren't blasting Muddy Waters or Sonny Boy Williamson or Howlin' Wolf. But they listened to Jimmy Reed the way they listened to Elvis or Gene Vincent or Jerry Lee Lewis. In suburban Dallas, Jimmy Reed was part of the canon of white teenage rebellion. I was amazed.

Amazement took on new meaning when I walked into LuAnn's [Mr. Ritz's spelling] on Greenville Avenue to hear Jimmy Reed live. To my teenage eyes, LuAnn's looked like an oversized barn, a cold and characterless dance hall that smelled of Lone Star beer, Fritos, and refried beans. Even on a cool April night, the place was sweltering hot. Hotter still was Jimmy Reed's sound. His sound took off the top of my head - his hypnotic mantra-like groove, his slurry sassy nasty nasal voice, his crying harmonica, his pleading, his hurting, his hallelujah tonight's-the-night jubilation. And then the way he looked: a leopard-skinned guitar at his chest, a gleaming gold harp at his mouth, his slicked-back hair, his razor-sharp moustache, his lime green silk suit, his banana yellow tie, his white buck shoes. He was bathed in sweat, and so was his song - "Got me running, got me hiding . . . Got me up down, down up ... Baby, what you want me to do?" His song smacked me in the face with a sting I had never felt before. I was awake to something I had never known before. Maybe it was sex; maybe it was the Holy Ghost; probably it was both. Reed's music was exploding with such force, I found myself dancing without a partner, dancing along with the other hundreds of white kids moving under the spell of the witch doctor, the pied piper of non-stop boogie, the undisputed oracle of an underground under-the-skin sanctified rhythm that was rocking this nation of horny high school kids. "Honest I do," he sang. "Gonna get my baby," he sang. "You don't gotta go," he sang. "Ain't that loving you, baby," he sang. "You got me dizzy," he sang. Song after song he sang, every song sounding the same, but better, tougher, louder, lewder, cruder. I was crazy with his spirit.

When the show was over, I gathered up my courage and made my way to the bandstand. Reed's roadie was packing up while the star was on his way out the door. I had to act fast.

"Excuse me, Mr. Reed," I said, feeling like Jimmy Olsen, the mild-mannered reporter too naïve to figure out Clark Kent's true identity, "but could I interview you for my school paper?"

His attitude was friendly and carefree as he and a voluptuous lady in a blue velvet, skin-tight gown headed toward a long limo. I had arrived at LuAnn's with a group of friends and wanted to tell them that I was leaving, but there wasn't time. The limo was pulling out with Jimmy Reed, his woman and, much to my astonishment, myself, all in the backseat.

I had my list of questions prepared. I wanted to ask him about growing up in rural Mississippi with his friend and guitarist Eddie Taylor, about his relationship with Elmore James, about his moves to Indiana and Illinois, the development of his singular sound, the methodology of his songwriting, the phenomenon of his crossover success. Pen in hand, notepad on lap, I was ready. Meanwhile, Reed fished a flask of whisky out of his suit pocket and brought it to his lips. He drained the flask in a flash, then asked the driver for a beer.

"What about me?" asked his woman. She was young, no more than three or four years older than me, but stunningly self-assured. As she crossed her long legs and locked eyes with him, I felt the heat of her personality.

Before I knew it, Reed whipped out a razor blade from inside his jacket and, in one ferocious motion, cut the woman on her upper arm. Pandemonium ensued. "You [expletive] ... !" she screamed. She went after him with her fire engine red fingernails, long as short knives, and caught his chin. He smacked her back. She landed on the floor. I scooted over towards the door, determined to avoid injury. Blood was gushing out of her arm. Blood was dripping from Reed's chin. Next thing I knew, the driver, a soft-spoken man who seemed to have it all under control, was calmly pulling up to the emergency room at Baylor Hospital as if this high drama were an everyday occurrence.

While Reed and his lady went in for treatment, the driver and I sat in the waiting room, a dingy area with decrepit furniture and yellowing white walls. We waited. Other patients passed through - a large Latino man who suffered a heart attack, a child who swallowed a bottle of pills, an elderly woman who fell down a flight of stairs and broke her back. There was moaning and crying. Families were praying. Some were screaming in pain. Anxiety was everywhere. Time passed slowly. Finally, at three in the morning, Reed and his lady friend emerged. They were both bandaged and, much to my surprise, they were holding hands.

At an all-night Toddle House, Jimmy, his woman, and I sat in a booth facing a mountain of bacon and biscuits. They doted affection on each other like newlyweds. I was famished. Food had never tasted this good.

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