⬇️ 'JOE HILL' LOUIS ⬇️
(Lester/Leslie Hill)
DISCOGRAPHY 1967-2023 (15CD)
Louis was born Lester (or possibly Leslie) Hill on September 23, 1921 in
Raines, Tennessee. His nickname “Joe Louis” arose as a result of a
childhood fight with another youth.
At the age of 14 he left home to work as a servant for a wealthy Memphis family, and also worked in the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, in the late 1930s. From the early 1940s onwards he worked as a musician and one-man band.
Louis’ recording debut was made for Columbia in 1949, and his music was released on a variety of independent labels through the 1950s, most notably recording for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, for whom he recorded extensively as a backing musician for a wide variety of other singers as well as under his own name.
(Lester/Leslie Hill)
DISCOGRAPHY 1967-2023 (15CD)
BIOGRAPHY
At the age of 14 he left home to work as a servant for a wealthy Memphis family, and also worked in the Peabody Hotel, Memphis, in the late 1930s. From the early 1940s onwards he worked as a musician and one-man band.
Louis’ recording debut was made for Columbia in 1949, and his music was released on a variety of independent labels through the 1950s, most notably recording for Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, for whom he recorded extensively as a backing musician for a wide variety of other singers as well as under his own name.
His most notable electric blues single "Boogie in the Park" (recorded
July 1950 and released August 1950) featured Louis performing "one of the
loudest, most overdriven, and distorted guitar stomps ever recorded" while
playing on a rudimentary drum kit at the same time. It was the only record
ever released on Sam Phillips' early Phillips label before founding Sun
Records. Louis' electric guitar work is also considered a distant ancestor
of heavy metal music.
His most notable recording at Sun Records was probably as guitarist on
Rufus Thomas’s “Bear Cat”, recorded as an answer record to Big Mama
Thornton’s “Hound Dog”, which reached No.3 on the R&B chart and
resulted in legal action for copyright infringement. He also shared
writing credit for the song “Tiger Man”, which has been recorded by Elvis
Presley, among others.
Around 1950 he took over the “Pepticon Boy” radio program on WDIA from
B.B. King.
He was also known as “The Pepticon Boy” and “The Be-Bop Boy”.
Louis died on August 5, 1957 in John Gaston Hospital, Memphis, at the age
of 35, from tetanus contracted as a result of an infected cut to his
thumb, sustained while working as an odd job man.
NEW!
2008-King Of The One Man Bands (2CD) @FLAC
2009-Essential Blues Masters @FLAC
2021-Anthology The Deluxe Collection (Remastered) @FLAC+
2023-We All Gotta Go Sometime @FLAC
VARIOUS ARTISTS
VA-Going Down to Louisiana (LP) @320
VA-Lowdown Memphis Harmonica Jam (1950-55) (LP) @320