17 Facts About Smiley Lewis

Overton Amos Lemons, known as Smiley Lewis, was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues singer and guitarist.

Smiley Lewis hit on a formula for slow-rocking, small-band numbers like 'The Bells Are Ringing' and 'I Hear You Knocking' only to have Fats Domino come up behind him with similar music with a more ingratiating delivery.

Smiley Lewis's mother died while he was a child, and later he named a song and several automobiles after her.

Smiley Lewis alone remained on the train, getting off when it reached its stop in New Orleans.

Smiley Lewis found boarding with a white family in the Irish Channel neighborhood and eventually adopted their surname, Lewis.

Smiley Lewis began playing clubs in the French Quarter and integrated "tan bars" in the Seventh Ward, at times billed as Smiling Lewis, a variation of the nickname earned by his lack of front teeth.

Smiley Lewis was often accompanied by the pianist Isidore "Tuts" Washington, with whom he played in Thomas Jefferson's Dixieland band in the mid-1930s.

The couple lived with her mother until they began having children, when they moved to South Tonti Street, while Smiley Lewis worked at manual labor during the day and performed at night.

An invitation from Dave Bartholomew, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Smiley Lewis and was then beginning a career as a producer with Imperial Records, led to a recording session for the trio in March 1950, at which they recorded the song "Tee Nah Nah".

Smiley Lewis had his first national hit song with "The Bells Are Ringing" in 1952.

Smiley Lewis was the first to record Bartholomew's song "Blue Monday", in 1954; Fats Domino's recording of the song was a hit two years later.

The experiment failed and did nothing to boost Smiley Lewis's declining record sales, and he was released from the label.

Smiley Lewis's career rounded out with a brief stint at Okeh Records in 1961 that consisted of one 45-rpm single, produced by Bill "Hoss" Allen in 1964 for Dot Records, and ended with a re-recording of "The Bells Are Ringing" for Loma Records, produced by Allen Toussaint.

Smiley Lewis was hospitalized in 1965 with a diagnosis of ulcer; surgery revealed that he had stomach cancer.

On October 7,1966, three days before the benefit, Smiley Lewis died, in the arms of his second wife, Dorothy Ester Lemons, whom he had married six months before.

Smiley Lewis's recording of "I Hear You Knocking" was released when US radio was still mostly marketed to exclusively white or exclusively black listeners.

Smiley Lewis's recording of "Shame, Shame, Shame" was used in the soundtrack of the film Baby Doll in 1956, accompanying a dramatic chase through a collapsing attic.