Slim Harpo — The King of Swamp Blues

James Moore worked the sugarcane fields and loading docks of Baton Rouge before he became Slim Harpo — and then became the most-covered Louisiana bluesman in rock history. The Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Grateful Dead all cut his songs. His 1966 'Baby Scratch My Back' hit number one on the R&B chart. He died in Baton Rouge in 1970 at 46, broke, while a generation of British rock stars was getting rich off his catalog. The swamp blues he invented — lazy, hypnotic, built around harmonica and a slow groove — is one of the most distinctive regional sounds in American music, and it came from this city.