Sleepy LaBeef (20th July Birthday)

[john poole]

Thomas Paulsley LaBeff - born 20th July, 1935 (Smackover, Arkansas) - 77 today, "The Human Jukebox" - he started playing in the 50s and by the 70s when talking to Peter Guralnick he estimated that he had six thousand songs in his repertoire

here in France earlier this year with a brief 'I'm Coming Home' - the Johnny Horton song which I think I first heard by Commander Cody & his Lost Planet Airmen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmg2N3ziXc0

'Mannish Boy' (Madrid, 1992)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEBn_T4-fd4

'Ride on Josephine' - a single from 1962/3 - good version of the Bo Diddley song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4jg_gVJhrI

http://www.rockabilly.nl/artists/labeef.htm

[Hugh Weldon]

I know it's a slip of the finger John but Sleepy - named for his drowsy baggy looking eyes - did one of those revelatory gigs for me back in about 1987. How I came to go I can't recall, I certainly hadn't read the Guralnick book by then. 'Human jukebox' was no misnomer - his encore consisted of a long extended medley in which tune after tune just poured out of him - all covers, some familiar, some not so - played with power and conviction.

[john poole]

Thank you Hugh.

My apologies to Sleepy for missing the "l" from his name, and then somehow failing to notice.

[AndyM]

Seepy La Beef sounded like a source of food poisoning.