Robert Lockwood, Jr.

Robert Lockwood Jr. was the only guitarist to have learned directly from Robert Johnson: Johnson was romantically involved with Lockwood's mother and taught the young Robert guitar in the mid-1930s in the Delta. Lockwood went on to become one of the most sophisticated and jazz-influenced guitarists in the blues, developing a chord-melody approach that set him apart from his contemporaries. He was a mainstay of the King Biscuit Time radio show in Helena, Arkansas, alongside Sonny Boy Williamson II, and later moved to Chicago and then Cleveland, where he became a beloved local institution. His session work for Chess Records in the 1950s backed many of the label's biggest artists. He continued performing into his nineties and was one of the last living links to Robert Johnson.