From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Fri Jul 5, 2002 1:13 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Smiley Lewis SMILEY LEWIS (By Jean-Marc Pezet) Born Overton Amos Lemons, 5 July 1913, DeQuincy, Louisiana Died 7 October 1966, New Orleans, Louisiana Who started recording around 1949 in New Orleans for Imperial, generally at Cosimo's Studios, backed by such luminaries as Lee Allen, Alvin "Red" Tyler, Herb Hardesty, Earl Palmer, Charles Williams and Dave Bartholomew, with tracks covered by bland white pop singers and Elvis Presley? Nope, you're wrong, this is not Fats Domino, this is Smiley Lewis. In fact, Fats played the piano for Smiley Lewis on his original version of "Blue Monday", and this has been the curse of all the recording career of Smiley, he never made it big, he just saw his songs getting big by others, and especially ol' Antoine for which he paved the way by a good few months. Smiley Lewis was born in a small Louisiana town near the Texan border, but moved to the Crescent City in 1931. For much of the decade, he made a living playing guitar and singing with the Thomas Jefferson Jazz Band, with pianist Isidore "Tuts" Washington. He cut his first single in 1947 for Deluxe Records ("Turn On Your Volume Baby"/"Here Comes Smiley"), only to be overshadowed by the new Deluxe protégé Roy Brown who had just cut "Good Rockin Tonight". Smiley took up his trio, always featuring "Tuts" on piano and started to make a name for himself as a hard R&B singer all over New Orleans. He was soon taken under the Imperial wings, recording his first single for the label in 1949 at Cosimo Matassa's Studio, "Tee Nah Nah", which was a blueprint for Fats Domino's "The Fat Man". Smiley constantly recorded classy New Orleans music, having occasional success on the R&B charts, but he never managed to cross over and make it big time with the pop audiences. Fats Domino had it big and covered his "Blue Monday" with success, while Gale Storm (and later Dave Edmunds) covered "I Hear You Knocking" in 1955 and Elvis Presley made a hit of "One Night Of Sin", a bit emasculated as "One Night With You". Smiley stayed with Imperial up until 1960, and then recorded for Okeh, Dot and Loma, but his music was now past its sell-by date. He died from cancer of the stomach in October 1966. Recommended listening: - "New Orleans Bounce, 30 Of His Best" Sequel NEX CD 130, 1990 - "Shame Shame Shame" 4 CD Box Set, Beaar Family BCD 15745, 1993