Ralph Coleman was born on July 4, 1899 to a family of itinerant Intuit sharecroppers on a tundra farm near Nome, Alaska.

          With the arrival of the Great Depression the carnival was bankrupt, and Coleman found himself out of a job for the first time in his life.  With no home, no work, and dependent on the largesse of soup kitchens and breadlines, Coleman learned to live by his wits.

          Sometime in those years he invented the sport of professional wrestling and quickly became one of its biggest stars.  Nationally famous, he competed for most of the next two decades as “Haystacks” Coleman, the Intuit Invader.  However, the arrival of television soon ended Coleman’s athletic career.  As an early television sports promoter said of Coleman, “He has a face for radio.”

          Coleman spent the next two decades drifting from town to town across the country.  In the early 1970's, while picking through a trash bin on Chicago’s South Side, he found a beat-up harmonica.  Coleman began to learn to play the instrument, spending most of his time over the next years practicing until his mouth bled.

          In 1980 Coleman decided he was ready to begin playing professionally.  He auditioned at an open mic night at one of Chicago’s last remaining disco clubs.  After two songs the club owner and patrons suggested that Coleman take up another instrument.

          Undaunted, Coleman managed to steal a guitar from one of the other musicians before the club closed that night and threw away his old harmonica.  He devoted the next twenty years to study of the instrument.

          Finally, fortune smiled on Coleman one day in early 2003.  The members of the Shakedown Blues Band held an open audition for a guitarist, and Coleman tried out.  Intimidated by the former wrestler’s lewd and threatening behavior, the band was totally cowed.  They offered him the job.

          So far, they haven’t found the courage to take it back.