From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Mon Sep 23, 2002 1:15 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Joe Hill Louis JOE HILL LOUIS Born Lester Hill, 23 September 1921, Whitehaven, Tennessee Died 5 August, 1957, Memphis, Tennessee One of Sam Phillips' first discoveries was Joe Hill Louis, an enigmatic bluesman who dubbed himself as "The Be Bop Boy and His One Man Band". He sang with the harmonica in front of his face, playing guitar and drums at the same time. The music he produced has been described by Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins as "primitive, countrified, and inscrutable". Yet, Louis' s performances had a compelling drive that compensated for the lack of pure technique. He made his first records for Columbia in Nashville, but that label had almost no penetration in the market that Louis serviced and the records sold so poorly that Sam Phillips had no problem in obtaining his release when he wanted to record Louis in 1950. After releasing "Gotta Let You Go"/"Boogie In The Park" on his own Phillips label in August 1950 (the only release on that label!), Phillips placed Louis with RPM/Modern and a version of every song known to have been sent by Phillips to the Bihari brothers for release on Modern is compiled on the Ace CD "Boogie In The Park", released in 2001. After falling out with the Biharis, Phillips succeeded in placing Louis with Chess. "We All Gotta Go Sometime"/"She May Be Yours" was one of the first Sun releases (Sun 178, January 1953), but after this disc failed to sell, Louis and Phillips finally parted ways, and Louis recorded for a few other labels before succumbing to tetanus in 1957. CD's: Boogie In The Park (Ace 803). 28 tracks. The Be Bop Boy (Bear Family BCD 15524). 22 tracks.