King shared his personal history during three years of interviews. He is quick to recall details and facile at reconstructing conversations, and his stories stand up to the scrutiny of rigorous fact-checking. Still, this is a story of memory. Details get distorted by time and sentimentality. Dates and ages get confused. Other journalists have interpreted the chronology of his life differently. As I started to write King’s story, I heeded the wisdom of eminent folklorist Bill Ferris, who interviewed bluesmen in his home state of Mississippi beginning in the 1960s and published some of those interviews in the book Give My Poor Heart Ease. “He might have a date wrong, but there’s a deeper accuracy that the dates won’t convey,” Ferris told me. “The stories don’t lie.”
