Born in remote Chillicothe in 1934, Lewis Wayne Williams began hanging out in the local record store in his teens to hear the latest r&b releases and, deciding on a career in music, switched to hanging around Jim Beck's recording studio in Dallas. He cut his first record in 1953 as "The Texas Drifter" before signing to Lew Chudd's Imperial label in 1955 where he laid down these dynamite cuts.