b.
Dec. 5, 1899, Glendora, MS, d. May 25, 1965, Helena, AR
Harmonica, Vocals / Electric Delta Blues, Electric
Chicago Blues
Sonny Boy Williamson was, in many ways, the ultimate
blues legend. By the time of his death in 1965, he had been
around long enough to have played with Robert Johnson at the
start of his career and Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Robbie
Robertson at the end of it. In between, he drank a lot of
whiskey hoboed around the country, had a successful radio
show for 15 years, toured Europe to great acclaim, and
simply wrote, played and' sang some of the greatest blues
ever etched into black phonograph records. His delivery was
sly, evil and world-weary, while his harp playing was full
of short, rhythmic bursts one minute and powerful,
impassioned blowing the next. His songs were chock-full of
mordant wit, with largely autobiographical lyrics that hold
up to the scrutiny of the printed page. Though he took his
namesake from another well-known harmonica player, no one
really sounded like him. A moody, bitter, and suspicious
man, no one wove such a confusing web of misinformation as
Sonny Boy Williamson II. Even his birth date (either 1897 or
1909) and real name (Aleck or Alex or Willie "Rice"-which
may or may not be a nickname-Miller or Ford) cannot be
verified with absolute certainty. Of his childhood days in
Mississippi absolutely nothing is known. What is known is
that by the mid '30s, he was traveling the Delta working
under the alias of Little Boy Blue. With blues legends like
Robert Johnson, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Jr. Lockwood, and
Elmore James as interchangeable playing partners, he worked
the juke joints, fish fries, country suppers, and ball games
of the era. By the early '40s, he was the star of KFFA`s
King Biscuit Time, the first live blues radio show to hit
the American airwaves. As one of the major ruses to occur in
blues history, his sponsor-the Interstate Grocery
Company-felt they could push more sacks of their King
Biscuit Flour with Miller posing as Chicago harmonica star
John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson. In today's
everybody-knows-everything video age, it's hard to think
that such an idea would work much less prosper. After all,
the real Sonny Boy was a national recording star, and
Millers vocal and harmonica style was in no way derivative
of him. But Williamson had no desire to tour in the South,
so prosper it did, and when John Lee was murdered in
Chicago, Miller became-in his own words-"the original Sonny
Boy." Among his fellow musicians, he was usually still
referred to as Rice Miller, but to the rest of the world he
did, indeed, become the Sonny Boy Williamson.
The
show was an immediate hit, prompting IGC to introduce Sonny
Boy Corn Meal, complete with a likeness of Williamson on the
front of the package. With all this local success, however,
Sonny Boy was not particularly anxious to record. Though he
often claimed in his twilight years that he had recorded in
the '30s, no evidence of that appears to have existed.
Lillian McMurray, the owner of Trumpet Records in Jackson,
MS, had literally tracked him down to a boarding house in
nearby Belzoni and enticed him to record for her. The music
Sonny Boy made for her between 1951 to 1954 show him in peak
form, his vocal, instrumental, and songwriting skills honed
to perfection. Williamson struck paydirt on his first
Trumpet release, "Eyesight to the Blind," and though the
later production on his Chess records would make the Trumpet
sides seem woefully underrecorded by comparison, they
nonetheless stand today as classic performances, capturing
juke-joint music in one of its finest hours.
Another
major contribution to the history of the blues occurred when
Sonny Boy brought King Biscuit Time guest star Elmore James
into the studio for a session. With Williamson blowing harp,
a drummer keeping time, and the tape machine running
surreptitiously, Elmore recorded the first version of what
would become his signature tune, Robert Johnson's "Dust My
Broom' " By this time Sonny Boy had divorced his first wife
(who also happened to be Howlin' Wolf's sister) and married
Mattie Gordon. This would prove to be the longest and most
enduring relationship of his life outside of music, with
Mattie putting up with the man's rambling ways, and living a
life of general rootlessness in the bargain. On two
different occasions Sonny Boy moved to Detroit, taking up
residence in the Baby Boy Warren band for brief periods, and
contributed earth-shattering solos on Warren sides for Blue
Lake and Excello in 1954.
By
early 1955, after leasing a single to Johnny Vincent's Ace
label, McMurray had sold Williamson's contract to Buster
Williams in Memphis, who in turn sold it to Leonard Chess in
Chicago. All the pieces were finally tumbling into place,
and Sonny Boy finally had a reason to take up permanent
residence north of the Mason-Dixon line; he now was
officially a Chess recording artist. His first session for
Chess took place on August 12, 1955, and the single pulled
from it, "Don't Start Me to Talkin'," started doing brisk
business on the R&B charts. By his second session for
the label, he was reunited with longtime musical partner
Robert Jr. Lockwood. Lockwood-who had been one of the
original King Biscuit Boys-had become de facto house
guitarist for Chess, as well as moonlighting for other
Chicago labels. With Lockwood's combination of Robert
Johnson rhythms and jazz chord embellishments, Williamson's
harp and parched vocals sounded fresher than ever and
Lockwood's contributions to the success of Sonny Boys
Chess recordings cannot be overestimated.
For
a national recording artist, Williamson had a remarkable
penchant for pulling a disappearing act for months at a
time. Sometimes, when Chicago bookings got too lean, he
would head back to Arkansas, fronting the King Biscuit radio
show for brief periods. But in 1963 he was headed to Europe
for the first time, as part of the American Folk Blues
Festival. The folk music boom was in full swing and
Europeans were bringing over blues artists, both in and past
their prime, to face wildly appreciative White audiences for
the first time. Sonny Boy unleashed his bag of tricks and
stole the show every night. He loved Europe and stayed
behind in Britain when the tour headed home. He started
working the teenage beat club circuit, touring and recording
with the Yardbirds and Eric Burdon's band, whom he always
referred to as 'de Mammimals'. On the folk blues tours,
Sonny Boy would be very dignified and laidback. But in the
beat club setting, with young, White bands playing on eleven
behind him he'd pull out every juke-joint trick he used with
the King Biscuit Entertainers and drive the kids nuts. "Help
Me" became a surprise hit in Britain and across Europe. Now
in his mid-60s (or possibly older), Williamson was truly
appreciative of all the attention, and contemplated moving
to Europe permanently. But after getting a harlequin,
two-tone, city gentleman's suit (complete with bowler hat,
rolled umbrella and attache case full of harmonicas) made up
for himself, he headed back to the States-and the Chess
studios-for some final sessions. When he returned to England
in 1964, it was as a conquering hero. One of his final
recordings, with Jimmy Page on guitar, was entitled "I'm
Trying to Make London My Home"
In
1965, he headed home, back to Mississippi one last time, and
took over the King Biscuit show again. Still wearing his
custom-made suit he regaled the locals with stories of his
travels across Europe. Some were impressed, others who had
known him for years felt he could have just as well
substituted the name "Mars" for Europe in explaining his
exploits, so used were they to Sonny Boys tall tales. But
after hoboing his way around the United States for
thirty-odd years, and playing to appreciative audiences
throughout Europe, Sonny Boy had a perfectly good reason for
returning to the Delta; he had come home to die He would
enlist the help of old friends like Houston Stackhouse and
Peck Curtis to take him around to all the back-road spots he
had seen as a boy, sometimes paying his respects to old
friends other days just whiling away an afternoon on the
banks of a river fishing.
When
Ronnie Hawkins' ex-bandmates, the Hawks, were playing in the
area, they made a special point of seeking out Sonny Boy and
spent an entire evening backing him up in a juke joint. All
through the night, Williamson kept spitting into a coffee
can beside him, When Robbie Robertson got up to leave the
bandstand during a break, he noticed the can was filled with
blood. On May 25, 1965, Curtis and Stackhouse were waiting
at the KFFA studios for Sonny Boy to do the daily King
Biscuit broadcast. When Williamson didn't show, Curtis left
the station and headed to the rooming house where Sonny Boy
was staying only to find him lying in bed, dead of an
apparent heart attack He was buried in the Whitfield
Cemetery in Tutwiler, MS, and his funeral was well-attended.
As Houston Stackhouse said, "He was well thought of through
that country." He was elected to the Blues Foundation Hall
of Fame in 1980. - Cub Koda
Biography courtesy of All
Music Guide to the Blues - Paperback -
658 pages 2nd edition (1999) Miller Freeman Books;
ISBN: 0879305487 - the most comprehensive guide to
great blues recordings money can buy. The online
version of the All Music Guides may be found at
www.allmusic.com
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