they hike up their skirts, start shouting out, ‘Muddy Waters in town!’

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Clarksdale had pool halls and beer joints for African Americans. Many of the clubs hired musicians, though the newfangled jukebox was steadily taking many of those gigs. But Clarksdale also had something that the country juke joints didn’t — a curfew. “Twelve o’clock you’d better be out of there,” said Muddy. “You had to git off the streets. That great big police come down Sunflower with that big cap on, man, just waving that stick. You had to go in the country.” Bootleggers and others who ran juke joints would come into town by afternoon and see who was drawing crowds. They’d hire the entertainer — and thereby his crowd — to bring it on down to the bootlegger’s place. The country was wide open with gambling and music. This was a land where “juke joint” rhymed with “half-pint,” and where the heating liquid Sterno was consumed for kicks; it was known as “canned heat” but pronounced “can-dy.” “They would have the parties just where they lived at,” said Muddy. “They would put the beds outside and have the whole little room to do their little dancing in.”