July - 1964

3:15 AM - Two full hours before the hot sun of Memphis would show its face. Straw bristles of a push broom scratch on the dry, uneven pavement of the gutter. Broken bottles, paper cups and assorted litter roll in front of it like a great, gray wave of the discarded as Memphis Sanitation employee, Walter 'Furry' Lewis shepherds the growing pile of debris on its trip down Main toward Beale. At the corner stands a trash can, awaiting the fruits of Lewis' efforts. Once reached, and with the practiced movements of a dancer, the accumulation expertly disappears into the galvanized circumference. No wasted motion, no missed items. The man knows what he's doing.

As well he should. He's been doing it for almost forty years.

Standing at the corner of Beale and Main in the gloaming of the Memphis dawn, Furry Lewis could see the marquee of the shuttered Daisy Theater. Across Beale, and down a few doors, stood the long-closed Palace Theater - and just beyond, the building that housed PeeWees, the infamous barrel house that was home to Beale Street's great blues musicians. It was in the smokey and blaring Peewees, legend has it, that W.C. Handy wrote The Saint Louis Blues, using a cigar case for a table. Of Peewees, Handy wrote, "Through the swinging door passed the heroic darktown figures of an age that is now becoming fabulous. They ranged from cooks and waiters to professional gamblers, jockeys and racetrack men of the period. Glittering young devils in silk toppers and Prince Alberts drifted in and out with insolent self-assurance. Chocolate dandies with roses embroidered on cream waistcoats loitered at the bar. Now and again a fancy gal with shadowed eyes and a wedding-ring waist glanced through the doorway or ventured inside to ask if anybody had set eyes on the sweet good man who had temporarily strayed away."

Leaning on his broom, the Street must have seemed a distant memory to Lewis. The lights, the noise, the fancy dresses, the pinched-waist suits. Watches with gold chains, broad-brimmed hats and walking sticks. Hot perfumes and exotic colognes mixed with the smell of barbecue and cigars and whiskey. Swaggering and strutting, laughter and shouting - and the music. Mostly, the music. Above everything and binding it all together, the music rolled.