Using skills he learned while repairing cars and building houses, Charlie Lucas began crafting sculptures from automotive and mechanical parts after suffering a serious back injury in 1984. He leaves his pieces unpainted, the roughness of their surfaces corresponding to the roughness he sees below the surfaces of people. Playing the Music the Old Way comes from the sculpture garden he created in his backyard in Selma, Alabama. This assemblage is concerned with the adoption of traditional blues by younger musicians, whose use of amplified instruments Lucas believes violates the spirit of the original.