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in 1897, died in 1985 and recorded “All Birds Look Like Chicken To Me”

and “Mama's Angel Child” in 1926.

Elmon Mickle was born in Keo, Arkansas in 1919. He recorded under his
real name, also as Model T Slim and Driftin' Slim.

He sang, played guitar and harmonica, working as a one man band until
the early 1970s when ill health forced him to quit music. He recorded
more than 20 sides, though some of them were with a band, and he died
in 1977 in Los Angeles.

Lester, or possibly Leslie, Hill was a one man blues band, playing guitar,
harmonica, drums and singing and working under a
series of quaint names, The Be-Bop Boy, The Pepticon Boy
and Chicago Sunny Boy, before settling on the name by
which he is remembered today, Joe Hill Louis. Born in
Raines, Tennessee in 1921, he won the nickname Joe
Louis as a child following a fistfight with another kid.

When he got to be 14 he left home to work with some rich
family in Memphis and by the late 1930s he was working
at The Peabody Hotel. Come the early 1940s he had left
that behind and was working as a one man blues band.

Joe Hill Louis first recorded in 1949, this was for Columbia, the first of a string of labels to release
his music – Modern, Checker, Meteor, Big Town – before, importantly, he recorded for Sam Phillips.
His 1950 waxing “Boogie In The Park” was a classic, not only because it was the only release on
Phillips Records, Sam's early label before his Sun Records, but because many consider that Louis'

electric guitar playing was a precursor to heavy metal music, described by Anthony DeCurtis as
“one of the loudest, most overdriven and distorted guitar stomps ever recorded...cranked high
guitar while sitting and banging at a rudimentary drum kit”.

Rolling Stone magazine wrote, “Joe Hill Louis played driving rhythms and scorching distorted solos
that might be counted as the distinct ancestors of heavy metal.”

As well as his recordings for Sun under his own name, Louis also appeared as a backing musician
for many of Sam's other artists. He was the guitarist on the Rufus Thomas recording of “Bear Cat” -
a response to Big Mama Thornton's “Hound Dog” which not only hit number 3 on the R&B chart but
was also the target for a spot of litigation for infringement of copyright.

Joe Hill Louis co-wrote “Tiger Man”, recorded by Elvis Presley, and in 1950 he took over the regular
spot on Radio WDIA vacated by BB King - as The Pepticon Boy.

Joe Hill Louis died in August 1957 in John Gaston Hospital in Memphis from tetanus, contracted

through a cut on his thumb which he sustained while working as an odd job man.

He was 35 years old.

I am sure that there must have been more of those great characters who created, developed and

perpetrated that great tradition of the Blues One Man Band and I would love to hear if any readers
know of them.