Coy "Hot Shot" Love

Biography

Coy "Hot Shot" Love was a renaissance man, of a kind, in blues: sign-painter, street denizen, and a magician with a harmonica, who liked to adorn his leather jacket and his bicycle, and other personal items with messages regarding his outlook on life. He lived on Gayoso Street in Memphis, an itinerant musician and sometime sign-painter who got his one moment of glory in the recording studio on January 8, 1954, when he entered Sam Phillips' Sun Studios to record "Wolf Call Boogie" b/w "Harmonica Jam," backed by Mose Vinson at the piano, Pat Hare on guitar, Kenneth Banks on bass, and Houston Stokes on the drums. The A-side, of which an outtake exists, is practically a monologue with musical accompaniment, set at a tavern and filled with insults directed at a bartender and wry observations on life and love. The B-side is a duet between Love and Pat Hare, with the former getting the better of the guitar player, vocally and blowing some Sonny Terry-style harp, in a mismatched competition. Love never cut another single for Sun -- accounts suggest he was juggling relationships with as many as seven women at once, indicating that he had better things to do than go into the recording studio -- but "Wolf Call Boogie" is one of the most anthologized of all Sun blues tracks, appearing on numerous compilations from Rhino, Rounder, Charly, and Bear Family, and is regarded, at least in its freewheeling style and raunchy subject matter, as a step forward on the road from country blues to rock & roll. Love survived for decades after his one claim to recorded music legend, and died in a car accident in Interstate 55. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide