hard-pressed to find a more brilliant and more underrated slide guitarist residing in Chicago during the ’50s and ’60s… .” And blues master B.B. King said that "to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him[;] he was just one of a kind". It is important to mention this influential musician, because Hooker’s collaboration with Wiley marked his introduction to the recording world. “The Hooker/O’Neal/Wiley combination was a potentially promising one, and it drew the attention of the talent scout for the Cincinnati-based King Recording Company who attended one of their tear-it-up performances at a Bradenton [FL.] club,” writes French blues historian Sebastian Danchin in his biography Earl Hooker, Blues Master. While the combo, which also included Wardell on piano, recorded several sides for King, only two, "Johnny Sings the Blues” (featuring an “alert bebop tenor sax solo contributed by Ed Wiley”) b/w "I've Seen So Many Hard Times" (a slow, soulful moaning blues showcasing O'Neal’s serious blues chops) were ever released. While performing an extended tour date at the Top Hat in Louisville, Ky., in 1952, Wiley allowed a local singer named Harvey Fuqua to sit in. By the time Wiley’s group departed a few weeks later, Fuqua and his singing partner, Bobby Lester, were members of the band. Fuqua – who went on to form the legendary doo-wop group The Moonglows and to produce numerous hits for Motown records – would always credit Wiley with giving him his first break in music and for teaching him how to sing blues and jump blues, precursors to rock and roll and modern soul music. Prior to joining Wiley, Fuqua and Lester specialized in vocalese, a style of singing where improvised solos are replaced with words. “They joined tenor sax man Ed Wiley's band for a tour of the South,” writes Fuqua biographer Steve Walker. “Wiley featured a variety of jump and blues tunes, and the young singers developed a wider repertoire from this experience.” When popular disc jockey Alan Freed – importantly, the man credited with coining the term “rock and roll” – heard the remodeled songsters, he began managing and promoting the duo, and prompted them to change their name to “The Moonglows.” Writes Washington Post reporter Terence McArdle, “They also performed on Freed's touring rock-and-roll revues and in the movies "Rock, Rock, Rock" (1956)