Valentine Xavier is an "entertainer" in New Orleans - he plays a guitar given to him by Leadbelly - but when he runs afoul of the law one too many times, he vows to quit the scene and start anew elsewhere. A rainstorm leaves him stranded in a small southern town somewhere between New Orleans and Memphis, and he decides to find a job there. While his past comes to haunt him in the form of local girl Carol Cutere, who's not really allowed anywhere in the town, Xavier's life also becomes inextricably linked with his boss' wife, the volatile Lady, whose weary, smouldering bitterness dates from the time the town rose up and destroyed her father's vineyard because he sold alcohol to a black person.