Hour Three is the heart of tonight’s show—a rare window into the mind and memory of Robert Jr. Lockwood, captured in a 1982 Chicago public radio studio with Sunnyland Slim sitting alongside him. It’s not every day that a musician with Lockwood’s lineage, experience, and self-contained cool sits down and actually talks. He was known for letting the guitar do the speaking; interviews were not his preferred stage. But this one opens up beautifully.
Lockwood begins by grounding listeners in the reality—not the mythology—of growing up in proximity to Robert Johnson. No ghost stories, no secondhand legends. Just a kid observing a man refining a new musical language in real time. Lockwood never bragged about that connection; he carried it like someone who knew the difference between influence and inheritance. His respect for Johnson was quiet, measured, and rooted in firsthand memory.
As the conversation travels forward, Sunnyland Slim jumps in with the occasional nudge—sometimes to jog a memory, sometimes to tease out a detail. The two men share stories from the early days of house parties, juke joints, and makeshift studios where “soundproofing” meant keeping the windows shut and hoping the neighbors didn’t call the police. The laughter between them gives the hour warmth. You feel like you’re listening to two old friends leaning on opposite ends of the same piano.
Lockwood also talks about the Chicago scene that welcomed him in the 1940s and 1950s: the fast pace, the high expectations, the fierce competition among guitarists. He describes the skill required to survive a Chess or Trumpet session—when one wrong note meant you didn’t get a callback. He reflects on accompanying Sonny Boy Williamson II, recalling the unpredictability of Sonny Boy’s musical moods: “You had to listen harder than you played,” he says—a line that feels like it ought to be carved onto a plaque somewhere.
The Little Walter stories sparkle too. Lockwood explains how Walter’s harmonica pushed guitarists to think differently—how the phrasing, the bends, the breathing all forced the band to respond in real time. Lockwood was one of the few guitarists who could meet Walter on equal footing, and he remembers those sessions with a mix of fondness and respect.
What gives this hour deeper weight is the sense that Lockwood is not just recounting events—he’s interpreting his life. He talks about arranging, about leadership, about the difference between playing blues as an art and playing blues as a job. He discusses his later years, his move into a more refined, almost jazz-like guitar voice, and how he saw his place in the lineage of the music.
It’s a rare interview that feels calm, intimate, and deeply grounded. No drama, no tall tales. Just two masters—Lockwood and Sunnyland Slim—talking through a lifetime of music like it’s the most natural thing in the world. For a show built on blues history, this is the kind of hour you dream about getting to air.
PLAYLIST – HOUR #3
ROBERT JR LOCKWOOD INTERVIEW