ABSTRACT
Charles spent in Texas. He kept a room at the Green Acres Motel in North Dallas, but
home base was Howard Lewis’ office at the Empire Room around the corner. Though
known as a cold, crafty man, Lewis had taken a liking to the young blues singer, and
he kept Ray’s schedule packed with one-nighters: a dance in Houston, January , with
Joe Turner and a dozen dates in San Antonio and Fort Worth before Oklahoma City,
January . Lewis’ son John, a tall, easy-grinning man of thirty-five, drove Ray and
looked after him on the road. John Lewis had been a pimp in California before ram-
bling home to Texas, and he knew his way around the shady side of life. Whatever town
they were in, he could steer the Olds to the right house on the right street so Ray could
score a bag of heroin or a tin of Mexican marijuana. Ray wasn’t doing much heroin that
winter, but one night in Longview, Lewis had to sit next to him on the bandstand,
nudging him and talking to him to keep him from nodding out.
