Sometimes you get a second chance.

Alexander “Papa” Lightfoot was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1924, in the cradle of the Delta Blues. He gained local fame as a devilish harmonica player and began his recording career in 1949. Throughout the early to mid-50s he frequently appeared on the radio and cut singles for six of the best blues and R&B labels. Unfortunately, he never scored a hit, and it’s hard enough to make a living as a known bluesman, let alone as one who’s unknown. After recording his final single in 1956, Lightfoot retired from music and became a popular fixture around Natchez as an ice cream vendor.

The 1960s saw a surge of interest in the blues, both in the US and the UK (where it was big enough to get labeled as the “British blues boom”). Musicians and folklorists alike went in search of lost bluesmen and, once found, many entered a recording studio again for the first time in decades. Even better, the publicity allowed these old-timers to tour until they were able to retire on their own terms.

Papa Lightfoot was obscure even at the height of his popularity, so it took a while to track him down. But a record producer traveled to Natchez in 1969 and asked the ice cream vendor if he’d like to return to the studio and cut some tracks. Lightfoot ended up releasing a full-length album and later got the chance to play with old friends at the 1970 Ann Arbor Blues Festival, but unfortunately, died of respiratory and cardiac failure shortly into his comeback (it didn’t help that — in true blues fashion — he’d been stabbed the year before by a jealous man who thought Lightfoot had been messing with his lady). Luckily, he got a second chance to live out his dream before his dream outlived him.

Here’s Papa Lightfoot in 1954, musing on a few of his favorite things (and it’s not raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens):