Joe Hill Louis

• Name — Joe Hill Louis • Birth Name — Lester Hill • Alias — * The Be-Bop Boy • The Pepticon Boy • Chicago Sunny Boy • Born — 23 September 1921 • Birthplace — Raines, Tennessee, U.S. • Died — 5 August 1957 • Place of death — Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. • Instrument — * Guitar • vocals • harmonica • drums • Genre — Blues • Occupation — Musician • Years Active — 1940s–1957 • Label — * Phillips • Sun • Checker • Modern • Meteor • Columbia

Louis was born Lester (or possibly Leslie) Hill on September 23, 1921, in Raines, Tennessee, now part of Memphis. 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. He also worked at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis in the late 1930s. From the early 1940s onwards he worked as a musician and one-man band.

Louis made his recording debut on Columbia Records in 1949, and his music was released on a variety of labels through the 1950s, such as Modern, Checker, Meteor, Big Town, and Mimosa. Louis also recorded for Sam Phillips' Sun Records, both under his own name and as a backing musician for a wide variety of other singers. His most notable electric blues single, "Gotta Let You Go" b/w "Boogie in the Park" (recorded in July 1950 and released the following month as part number 9001/9002), featured Louis performing "one of the loudest, most overdriven, and distorted guitar stomps ever recorded" while also playing a rudimentary drum kit. It was the only record released on Sam Phillips's early 'It's The Phillips' label before he founded Sun Records. Louis's electric guitar playing is also considered a predecessor of heavy metal music. Another notable recording he made at Sun Records was as guitarist on Rufus Thomas's "Bear Cat", an answer record to Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog", which reached number 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 Thomas and 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" or "The Be-Bop Boy", and recorded as "Chicago Sunny Boy" for Meteor Records in 1953.

Louis died on August 5, 1957, in John Gaston Hospital, in Memphis, at the age of 35, of tetanus contracted as a result of an infected cut on his thumb, sustained while he was working as an odd job man.