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Author’s note: This is a kind of prequel to the recently published three-part series of my musical memoirs by the Lost Coast Outpost.

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Sunnyland Slim said we needed gas money for our trip to California. He booked a gig at the Casablanca Club, a Southern juke joint in Blytheville, Arkansas.

After that show and a day’s rest, we’d drive 2,000 miles to San Francisco. It was late October 1972. We were booked to play a month-long tour of San Francisco Bay Area music venues with the great blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield. The first show was booked for Nov. 1 at the Opal Cliffs Inn, downtown Santa Cruz, California.

As a Chicago teenager, Bloomfield played the rough Southside clubs with blues pianist/singer Sunnyland and other veteran bluesmen. He later joined the popular Paul Butterfield Blues Band and recorded several albums with them including the influential “East-West.” Bob Dylan recruited him to record “Highway 61 Revisited,” which includes “Like a Rolling Stone,” with him in the mid-’60s.

Bloomfield moved to San Francisco in the late ’60s. He formed the Electric Flag band and recorded “Super Session” with keyboardist Al Kooper. He was widely considered the best white blues guitarist in the country.

Our five-piece band left Chicago at midnight in three different cars. We were scheduled to play from midnight to sunrise the next day.

As a relatively inexperienced drummer, I’d only played a handful of shows. Nothing like this. But I was game.

My friend and harmonica player Harry Duncan and I took turns driving our 1965 Ford Fairlane. We drove all night through Illinois, 470 miles. As the sun rose, we rolled by cotton field after cotton field. The humid air smelled of the red dirt I could see along the shoulder of the highway.

So, this is the South, I thought.

We arrived exhausted in Blytheville at 9 in the morning. The Casablanca Club was located on the Stateline Highway between Missouri and Arkansas, just off Highway 61.

The club stood on the edge of a large cotton field – a white, weathered, wooden building with a metal roof. It had been a part of the Southern “Chitlin’ Circuit.”

The Chitlin’ Circuit was a collection of black-owned and operated performance venues in America’s Eastern, Southern and Upper Midwest regions. The circuit sustained black musicians, comedians and dancers during segregation from the 1930s to the early 1970s.

Black people could cut loose dancing, drinking and socializing in these segregated clubs. At the time, Jim Crow laws prohibited black entertainers from playing most white-owned clubs.

In his 30s, Sunnyland lived near, and played, the Casablanca Club in the early 1940s. (Thank you to Matt Chaney for this research.)

Sunnyland emerged from his Oldsmobile station wagon and walked up to a middle-aged black man in overalls. He was sitting down and cleaning catfish next to a silver metal wash tub.

Just then the club owner, Dizzy, walked up. “Hey Sunnyland, what’s happening man?”

“What’s goin’ on captain,” Sunnyland said.

Harry and I went inside to check out the room. Hanging on a wall near the club’s jukebox were posters of shows with the younger Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and B. B. King. The large wooden dance floor was weathered and smooth, perfect for dancers. There was no stage.

The four sidemen drove to a nearby, downtrodden motel to sleep the day away to prepare for our all-night gig.

By midnight the place was packed with 200 people. The only white people in the room were three of the musicians, Harry, young Chicago guitarist Jimmy Kahr and me. Our black bassist, Joe Harper, was part of the Chicago blues scene with Sunnyland.

Women were dressed in colorful, light cotton dresses. The guys wore dress shirts and jeans.

Stylin’ in a tan suit coat and white dress shirt, Sunnyland began at midnight with his own fast shuffle, “I’ve Got to Get to My Baby.”

We played Chicago-style shuffles, swing and slow blues hour after hour.

Whiskey and beer flowed, the lively dance floor packed.

On the first set break, I went to get a beer. A tall, burly guy with a scruffy beard said, “Man, you’re playing with Sunnyland. Let me buy you a whiskey.”

“No thanks. I don’t drink whiskey,” I said.

He glowered at me. “What, my money ain’t good enough for you?”

Frightened and feeling like I was about to be punched, I said, “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll have that whiskey. Thank you.” I drank it down as he smiled.

During the next set, a tall, slender transvestite dressed in translucent blue and pink started dancing next to my drum set. He stuck his tongue out at me during a song.

By 5:30 in the morning we had played four long sets.

Dizzy, the club owner, got on the microphone and announced it was time for breakfast. The $3 cover charge included a delicious plate of fried catfish, okra, scrambled eggs and toast. Orange juice and coffee, too.

“Paul’s got more food on his plate than a greyhound can jump over,” Sunnyland said.

Hey, I was 21, skinny and hungry. I’d just played drums for five hours.

After the sunrise breakfast, we played one more set for the sobered-up but still-dancing crowd.

We had driven nine hours the night before and played six hours of music.

As the band packed the gear, Sunnyland sat down at a table with four other men, including Dizzy. A cash poker game began.

After sleeping a few hours, the band returned to the club around noon. Sunnyland was in a somber mood.

“Harry, Dizzy took some of the money last night,” Sunnyland said. We knew he’d lost it gambling. For our efforts we figured we’d each get at least $75 for gas money. The national average for a gallon of gas at that time was 36 cents.

With a sheepish look, Sunnyland handed Harry, Joe and me $11 each. Eleven dollars!

“I’ve got to give Jimmy a little more because he’s driving alone to Los Angeles.” He gave Jimmy Kahr $13.

That was our gas money for the trip to San Francisco. We’d each spent at least three times that on food, gas and the motel.

But I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. After more than 50 years of playing shows, it remains my most memorable gig ever.

Nothing comes close.