A newly reissued compilation from British label Jasmine Records has drawn renewed attention to Auburn "Pat" Hare, an African-American blues-rock guitarist of the 1950s whose innovative playing style is said to have anticipated Jimi Hendrix. Hare has remained largely overlooked compared with contemporaries such as Hubert Sumlin and Magic Sam, likely because his career is overshadowed by a real-life crime that eerily mirrored one of his own songs: in 1963 he shot dead his mistress and a police officer, an act foreshadowed by his recording "I'm Gonna Murder My Baby".

Hare, born near Memphis in 1930, played guitar from the age of ten and went on to work as a session musician with major blues figures including Muddy Waters, James Cotton and Bobby "Blue" Bland, as later collected on Jasmine's 28-track compilation. After leaving Waters' band in Chicago in early 1963 due to alcoholism and violent rage, he moved to Minneapolis, where on 15 December 1963 he shot his girlfriend Agnes Winje, 49, twice, then killed responding officer Patrolman James Hendricks at point-blank range before being wounded by a second officer. Winje died of her injuries months later, resulting in a double-murder conviction and a prison sentence that lasted the final 16 years of Hare's life.