Raised in a shotgun house just a few blocks from the muddy banks of the Mississippi, Bishop was cradled by the sound of freight trains and late-night blues drifting from corner bars.

His grandfather, Sam Bishop, taught young Jesse his first chords on a battered guitar with only five strings. Sam was fading from tuberculosis by then, but he poured every bit of soul he had left into showing his grandson how to speak through the strings.

By age seven, Bishop was sneaking into juke joints, watching local legends tear up pawn shop guitars and secondhand pianos.

Bishop still says he didn’t learn the blues—he inherited it.