Description: A raw, heartfelt memoir of an unlikely collaboration between an earnest young harmonica player and a charismatic, streetwise Harlem musician.

Adam Gussow, shattered by failed love at twenty-seven, dedicated himself to blues music in an act of creative desperation. When he met Nat Riddles ("harmonica man for all occasions"), he got what he was longing for: initiation into the New York "harp"-playing demimonde and a headlong plunge into a Dionysian lifestyle that ended when Riddles' near murder and flight compelled Adam to find a different mentor. Mister Satan was that man. Born Sterling Magee in Mississippi, Satan played guitar and various percussion instruments simultaneously, ferociously. He was a soap-box preacher and environmental philosopher, an African-American genius of Shakespearean immensity. Defying cultural and generational divides, Adam and Satan become fellow street musicians, would be racial redeemers, and eventually, an acclaimed performing duo.

This is their remarkable story: at once the author's own coming of age and his account of the vicissitudes and tenacity of a friendship realized through a shared love of the blues.

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