In 1956, when he was living in Houston, Texas, Wills sold one of his early compositions, "My Dolly Bee," to Don Robey for Junior Parker's use on Duke Records.
In 1957, Slim recorded his humorous tale of a hapless individual, "Flat Foot Sam", with his backing group the Heartbreakers, comprising Mighty Joe Young (guitar), Eddie Williams (piano) and Jimmy White (drums).
This time, Robert Parker gave a saxophone solo, Chess A&R man Paul Gayten played the piano, with Charles "Hungry" Williams on drums.
Leonard Chess, for some reason, then reissued the original Clif version on Checker, in the same month as the Argo re-recording was released.
[3] Billboard, possibly baffled by it all, awarded the original version of "Flat Foot Sam" a higher rating (77) than the Argo single (75).
This turned out to be an instrumental "Nervous Boogie" recorded by Paul Gayten, who had played piano and produced Slim's June session.
"Nervous Boogie" generated the greater demand, and ended with a peak position of number 68 on the Billboard pop chart in December 1957.
[2] Wills died in a car accident on U.S. Route 66 outside Kingman, Arizona, in October 1969, when traveling home to Los Angeles after playing a date in Chicago.