Besides the fact that he was one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time, “Magic” Sam Maghett never caught a break in his life. His story is an agonizing parade of close calls, near misses, and bad luck, which he endured with a blistering talent and a kind, self-effacing nature. In the years since his death, his influence has grown beyond anything he could have imagined during his short, hard life. But while he was alive, he never got the recognition he deserved. A pioneer of Chicago’s West Side sound, Sam helped bring screaming electric guitar to the forefront of blues, and his distinctive, powerful attack can be heard echoing through the first generation of white blues guitarists, who rode his style to fame and fortune.

Born with a gift for music into a sharecropping family near Grenada, Mississippi, Sam made guitars out of anything—cigar boxes, diddley bows, bailing wire. He would sit entranced watching local bands at the fish frys and house parties near his home, but his love of blues didn’t serve him well in the fields. He caught whippings from his father when he couldn’t plow the fields, and when the abuse worsened, neighbors called his relatives in Chicago to intervene.

Rescued by his aunt Lily and her husband—harmonica powerhouse “Shakey Jake” Harris—Sam was just 13 when he arrived in Chicago, and already an accomplished guitarist. It was the early 1950s. Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf ruled the South Side, packing tough clubs like Pepper’s and the Checkerboard Lounge, playing the pounding, electrified Delta blues that would come to be recognized as the sound of the city.

A generation younger than the first wave of Chicago’s blues legends, Sam was still a teenager when he went professional, guided and encouraged by Harris. He plunged head first into the Chicago scene, competing for gigs not just with Wolf and Waters, but Elmore James, Little Walter, Freddie King, Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson, and countless others, all cutting heads, from the Maxwell Street market to the notoriously violent bars of the city’s poor neighborhoods.

Sam was different, though. Perhaps it was the fact that he was younger, soaking up music like a sponge, and so clearly gifted. His music somehow sounded like nothing and everything that had come before him, all at once. Sam took the starkness of the Delta, and the pounding Chicago beat, and added elements of Memphis: stinging, single-string B.B. King leads, and pleading, emotional Bobby “Blue” Bland vocals. Then he stripped it down to its purest elements, drenched it in reverb and tremolo, and played it with all his heart. With sliding 9th chords and popping bass lines, Sam wrenched a unique and distinctive blues from his cherry Epiphone Riviera.

It was the birth of the West Side sound, and along with Otis Rush and Buddy Guy, Sam brought the expressive screams and restrained whispers of electric lead guitar to the forefront of the blues. Where the howling harmonica of Little Walter or Junior Wells would handle lead with Muddy Waters, and the stuttering, driving guitar of the brilliant Hubert Sumlin would dart between Howlin’ Wolf’s huge vocals, the West Side innovators took blues guitar to dizzying new heights.

While over-the-top showmen like Guitar Slim and T-Bone Walker had blazed the trail earlier, nobody had ever brought such soulful power and drama to the music before. It was the sheer emotional potential of the instrument laid bare. There was desperation and passion in the crying overbends and pleading vocals of the West Side guitarists. The great Albert King sounded like he could bend a wound G-string three steps in his sleep. When Sam did it, it sounded like it was breaking his heart. Rush and Guy were flashier, but nobody could touch the gut-wrenching feeling that Sam summoned in his songs. A short decade later, Sam, Rush, and Guy would have a profound influence on guitarists like Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, and Dickey Betts, among others. (continued)