640 Remembering Sleepy

 July 20, 1935 – December 26, 2019

One of the good ones passed away this week, he wasn't a household name, but he was one great entertainer. Born in Smackover, Arkansas, the youngest of 10 children, Thomas Paulsley LeBiff, got his nickname, Sleepy,  as the results of a lazy eye. A big man, LaBeef stood 6 and a half feet tall. He was raised on a melon farm and moved to Houston, when he was 18.  In Houston, he sang gospel music on local radio and started a bar band which led to playing the Houston Jamboree and Louisiana Hayride. In the 1950s, he began recording rockabilly  singles; his first, "I'm Through", was issued in 1957.
 In 1964, Sleepy moved to Nashville and moved into a country style, recording for Columbia Records In 1968, he also starred in the horror movie, The Exotic Ones,playing the Swamp Thing Monster in a New Orleans strip  club...it wasn't an Academy Awards winner. He moved to Sun Records in the 1970's releasing albums and touring widely through the decade.  The 1980s saw him sign with Rounder Records, where he released albums into the 1990s.
He became known as “The Human Jukebox” because he seemed to know every song ever written, and sometimes his shows would consist of him performing for 3 or 4 hours straight, no breaks, with short-and-long term band members holding on for dear life, often not knowing the songs as Sleepy plowed through them like a mule plowing through hard and rocky Arkansas farmland.  After listening to these you'll be anything but sleepy!

10 Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms (an American traditional song)
09 Flying Saucers Rock & Roll (Billy Lee Riley cover)
08 Mannish Boy (Muddy Waters cover)
07 Night Train To Memphis (Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys cover)
06 Stormy Monday ( T-Bone Walker cover)
05 Bottle Up and Go (John Lee Hooker cover)
04 Boom, Boom, Boom (John Lee Hooker cover)
03 Red Hot (Billy Lee Riley cover)
02 Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry cover)
01 Buying A Book (Joe Tex cover)
00  Tumbling Tumbleweed (Sons of the Pioneers cover)

 Young and Rockin'...

Sleepy