Billy Joe & The Checkmates

Born on 21 March 1919 in El Paso, Texas, Louis Bideu later performed under the alias Billy Joe Hunter as the frontman for a fabricated ensemble. Known at the time as Lew Bedell, he entered entertainment as a comedian and hosted a radio program of his own in New York throughout the mid-1950s. Early in the following decade he joined noted arranger and composer Ernie Freeman, fresh from his major success with “Raunchy.” The pair composed an infectious xylophone-driven instrumental titled “Percolator,” its sound echoing the bubbling of coffee, then appended the then-fashionable term “Twist” to the name in 1962; the resulting single climbed into the American Top 10. Maxwell House subsequently licensed the buoyant melody for a national television advertisement. Recording further light instrumentals such as “One More Cup” and “Claire De Looney” under the Billie Joe name, he secured no additional chart entries.