John Bennett Crider was one of the guests at the Hotel Tennessee, in downtown Memphis, a few blocks from Beale Street,when I was staying there. He spent much of his day in the lobby, which, with it's overstuffed leather sofas and overhead fans, looked like a movie set from the 20s. In fact, the hotel had been built in 1927, and was virtually unchanged half a century later.
I photographed quite a number of the guests, but John had the most intense look of all of them.