This chapter mainly focuses on the life and work of Blue Lu Barker, wife of Danny Barker, who was a major blues and jazz singer in the 1930s and 1940s, who continued her career in New Orleans into the 1970s. Starting out as a singer and dancer, she came to New York as a teenager, chaperoned by the legendary clarinettist Lorenzo Tio Jr. She cut her first discs for Decca, including an all-star cast with such musicians as Benny Carter and Henry Allen. The Texan pianist Sammy Price also played on her records. She gives an insider's view of living with 'Show people' in New York, including the drummer Paul Barbarin, who later worked on her records after she signed to Capitol. She discusses making records in New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Her career is compared to that of the contemporary singer Topsy Chapman, who started out singing gospel but starred in the show One Mo Time. Chapman discusses the imprtance of festivals in a singer's career.

Through Danny Barker, Shipton is introduced to trumpeter Buck Clayton, beginning a friendship that ultimately leads to Shipton inheriting some of Clayton's music and forming a band in his memory. But Clayton prompts Shipton into writing and researching a book about Fats Waller. Shipton meets as many Waller band survivors as possible, including guitarist Al Casey (with whom he tours in the UK), trumpeters Jabbo Smith and Bill Coleman, saxophonist Franz Jackson, and significantly, drummer Harry Dial. This chapter gives background to Shipton's book on Waller, and brings alive the era of 1930s New York and of swing bands on the road.