He was a blues singer and guitarist who was a major influence on 1960s rock musicians, including Jimmy Page (I), Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton.
He was left-handed and played a right-handed guitar upside down.
He started playing guitar when he was ten, borrowing his uncle's guitar in secret. In the late 1940s he moved to Chicago and worked in the stockyards before forming his first band.