Kid Thomas born 20 June 1934

Louis Thomas Watts, commonly known as Kid Thomas (20 June 1934 – 5 April 1970) was and is one of the great unsung heroes of the music that skirts the fine line between blues and straight-out rock & roll. Though success constantly eluded him throughout his career, it wasn't for lack of talent. 

He was born Louis Thomas Watts in Sturgis, Mississippi. About seven years later, his parents, Virgie and VT, moved the family up to Chicago. By the time young Louis reached street-wise, teenage manhood, he was taking harmonica lessons from Little Willie Smith, one of the many peripheral bluesmen on the Chicago scene, in exchange for giving Smith lessons on the drums, the Kid's original instrument. 

The late '40s and early '50s found him semi-gainfully employed blowing harp at Cadillac Babys and a dozen other clubs whose names are now lost to the mists of time. According to all accounts, he appears to have sat in with everybody at one time or another during the early to mid-'50s; Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Bo Diddley all welcomed him on-stage on a regular basis, while Thomas found himself even deputizing for his harmonica hero Little Walter on the not-so-odd occasion when said hero was too drunk to make it up to the bandstand. 

By 1955, Kid Thomas decided he needed to make a record to help promote his club appearances. Walking by the King-Federal distributors one day, he simply poked his head and announced that he'd like to record. As luck would have it, he was immediately introduced to Ralph Bass, then working for Syd Nathan's label conglomerate as an A&R man. Bass listened to Thomas' spiel, then sent him off with instructions to put a band together and come back for a demo session. Deputizing Smith on drums, a guitarist only remembered as "James", and an unknown piano man, our hero headed back for the audition loaded down with tunes he had been working up on his gigs. 

                                    

In his only known interview, conducted in 1969 by Darryl Stolper, Thomas remembered that first session that led to his first record being issued: "The first few numbers didn't go over, so I started thinking about Howlin Wolf, and I came up with "Wolf Pack." And "The Spell" I got from Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Both of them were thought up on the spur of the moment, and Ralph Bass dug them." Rather than have Thomas come back in and do a formal session, Bass was so taken with the results of the Kid's ad-lib compositions that the results were duly pressed up as Federal single. However, it was not successful, and other recordings he made for Federal went unissued for many years. 

After a stint performing in clubs in Wichita, Kansas, where he joined up with Hound Dog Taylor, he travelled to Los Angeles with the idea of emulating the success of Little Richard. There, he met record producer George Motola, and in 1959 recorded the single "Rockin' This Joint To-Nite," which was released on Motola's Transcontinental Records label. The record has been described as "one of the wildest rock'n'roll discs of all time with Kid Thomas blowing his harmonica and shouting out the lyrics in a frantic frenzy." However, it was not a commercial success. 

He continued to perform with a band in Los Angeles clubs, often as Tommy Louis and the Rythm  Rockers or Tommy Louis and the Versatiles. In 1965, he recorded two singles for the Muriel Records label, "The Hurt Is On" and "Wail Baby Wail", another full-blooded rocker featuring guitar by Marshall Hooks, but neither were hits. His final record, as Tommy Lewis, was "(You Are An) Angel", on the Cenco Records label in 1969. In the late 60s, he worked for everything from cheap beer bars to private parties and was even hired by Dean Martin at one of them. 

Kid Thomas? from CD cover

Finding little commercial success, Kid Thomas worked as a lawn mowing man in Los Angeles in the latter half of the 1960s. On September 3, 1969, while pulling his van away from a lucrative Beverly Hills home he had just finished up, he ran over a young boy who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The boy died later that afternoon. A manslaughter indictment against Thomas was dropped because of insufficient evidence, but a few months later he was due back in court on charges of driving with a revoked license. Waiting for him outside the courthouse was the boy’s distraught father. The men spoke briefly and then Friedman pulled a 9mm automatic pistol from a briefcase and fired point-blank into the bluesman.  Thomas ran across the street toward the rear entrance of the police station with Friedman in pursuit still squeezing off rounds.  Thomas fell to the curb, but a stray shot struck Beverly Hills Police Sgt. John Carden in the leg as he was standing at the rear door of the station.  Friedman dropped his gun and was arrested without incident. 

Kid Thomas, was pronounced dead on arrival at UCLA Medical Center, Beverly Hills on April 5, 1970.  Since the man who died in that shooting incident was named Louis Thomas Watts, scarcely a word on Kid Thomas's death was heard in the blues community for quite some time.   (Edited from AllMusic, Wikipedia & David K. Frasier article)