When we got to Memphis, we stayed at McIntire's, where Fahey and I had
stayed the year
before, and we got jobs modeling nude at the Memphis Academy of Arts, where
McIntire
taught a course in design. After a week or so I slowly began canvassing the
neighborhood,
block by block, looking for old records in the rows of black occupied houses
behind Madison
Avenue, spending the $11-$25 per week I was making while artsy middle aged
ladies with
cold clay covered hands had checked to make sure my upper calves were
proportioned
exactly as they modeled them.
One day, I think it was a Sunday, I was working a nearby street asking if
anyone had any old
records, "like Blind Lemon or Charley Patton," when someone invited me to
take a look at a
guitar they might want to sell. The house was small, and very dark inside,
like walking into
the gloom; mid-day Memphis burning outside the door though not a droplet of
light could
penetrate the shadows into the back of the inside room.