Sonny Boy Williamson Ii

Alex or Aleck Miller (ne Ford) was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter. He was a pioneering blues harpist who made recordings in the 1950s, 1960s. Miller went by many names including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue before he became Sonny Boy Williamson. This was the name of a Chicago blues singer who also played harmonica. Miller is sometimes referred to by Sonny Boy Williamson II in order to distinguish them. Elmore James recorded his first recording with Miller on “Dust My Broom”. His most popular songs are “Don’t Start Me talkin'”, “Help Me”, and “Bring It On Back”. He toured Europe as part of the American Folk Blues Festival, and recorded with English rock musicians including the Yardbirds and the Animals. His song “Help Me” was a blues classic and many other blues and rock artists have recorded it. Miller was born Alex Ford, pronounced “Aleck”) at Tallahatchie County’s Sara Jones Plantation. It is not known when and where Miller was born. Although he claimed to be born December 5, 1899 by David Evans, a professor of music at the University of Memphis and an ethnomusicologist, he claims that census records show that he was seven years old on the date of the census, which is February 2, 1920. Lillian McMurry, a record company owner, placed his gravestone near Tutwiler in Mississippi twelve years after his death. It gives his birth date as March 11, 1908 but is not reliable. From the 1930s, he lived with Jim Miller, his stepfather and sharecropper, and Millie Ford, his mother. He traveled through Mississippi and Arkansas in the 1930s and met Big Joe Williams, Elmore James, and Robert Lockwood, Jr., better known as Robert Junior Lockwood, who would later play guitar on his Checker Records sides. During this time, he was also closely associated with Robert Johnson. These years saw Miller develop his stage style and raffish persona. Willie Dixon recalls seeing Lockwood, Miller and others playing in Greenville (Mississippi) in the 1930s. He was known for his unique tricks, such as inserting the harmonica’s end into his mouth and playing without any hands. He was known as “Rice Miller” in his youth, a nickname he got from his love for rice and milk. Miller was hired in 1941 to appear on the King Biscuit Time radio show. He would be advertising King Biscuit baking flour, KFFA, Helena, Arkansas. Max Moore, the program’s sponsor was able to call Miller Sonny Boy Williamson in an apparent attempt to capitalize upon the fame of Sonny Boy Williamson, a well-known Chicago-based harmonica player, and singer (born John Lee Curtis Williamson; died 1948). Miller later claimed to be the first to use the name, despite John Lee Williamson being a prominent blues musician who had released numerous influential and successful records under the “Sonny Boy Williamson” name since 1937. Blues scholars suspect that Miller’s claim that he was born 1899 was a lie to convince people that he was old enough for the name to be used before John Lee Williamson, born in 1914. Williamson moved to West Memphis, Arkansas in 1949 with his sister, Howlin Wolf. He later did a parody of Howlin’ Wolf for Checker Records called “Like Wolf”. From 1948 to 1950, he started his own KWEM radio station and sold the elixir Hadacol. To perform on KWEM radio, he brought along his King Biscuit musicians friends, Houston Stackhouse and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup to West Memphis. Williamson was married to Howlin’ Wolf, and he taught Wolf how harmonica is played. Williamson recorded his first session in 1951 for Lillian McMurry, Trumpet Records. This was three years after John Lee Williamson died. It gave some legitimacy to Miller’s meticulously crafted claim that he was “the only Sonny Boy Williamson”. McMurry later built Williamson’s gravestone near Tutwiler in Mississippi. In 1955, Trumpet was bankrupt and Williamson’s recording contract was given to creditors. Chess Records, Chicago, purchased it. Since 1953, he had been a part of Elmore James’s Chicago band. He was a popular figure in Chicago. He recorded about 70 songs between 1955 and 1964 for Chess’ subsidiary Checker Records. This was his best period of success. Checker released his first LP, Down and Out Blues in 1959. Ace Records released one single, “Boppin’ with Sonny”, b/w “No Nights by Myself”, in 1955. He toured Europe many times in the 1960s during the peak of British blues craze. He was accompanied on a variety of occasions by The Authentics (see American Folk Blues Festival), recorded with The Yardbirds (for The album Sonny Boy Williamson u0026 The Yardbirds), and appeared on numerous TV broadcasts across Europe. He was quoted saying that the backing bands he accompanied wanted to play the blues “real bad” around this time. Hammer of the Gods, a Led Zeppelin biography, states that Sonny Boy was trying to make a rabbit in a coffee machine while trying to set fire to his hotel room in England while he was in England. According to the book, Robert Plant, a future Led Zeppelin singer, stole one of the bluesman’s harmonicas during one of these shows. Robert Palmer wrote in “Deep Blues” that Williamson was alleged to have stabbed a man on a street fight during the tour and then fled the country. [citation needed] Sonny Boy liked the European fans and had a two-tone custom suit made for him. He also received a matching umbrella, a bowler cap, and attache case to hold his harmonicas. Roland Kirk’s 1963 live album Kirk in Copenhagen features him as “Big Skol”. In 1964, he recorded his last recording from England. He sang “I’m Trying to Make London my Home”, while Hubert Sumlin played the guitar. After his return to America, he played the King Biscuit Time on KFFA and also performed in Helena, Arkansas. Houston Stackhouse, Peck Curtis and others waited at KFFA studios to find Williamson on May 25, 1965. By this time, the 12:15 broadcast was approaching and Sonny Boy wasn’t there. Peck left the radio station in an effort to find Williamson. He found his body in the bed of the rooming house where Williamson had been staying. It was believed that he had suffered a heart attack while asleep. Williamson is buried at New Africa Road, just outside Tutwiler in Mississippi, on the site of the former Whitman Chapel Cemetery. Lillian McMurry (owner of Trumpet Records) provided his headstone. The stone’s death date is incorrect. All recordings by John Lee Williamson from 1937 to his death in 1948, and those made by Rice Miller between 1951 and 1964 were originally issued under the name Sonny Boy Williamson. Miller may have adopted the name in order to show his audiences and to his first record label that he was the “original Sonny Boy”. Scholars and biographers refer to John Lee Williamson (1914-1948), as “Sonny Boy Williamson I”, or “the original Sonny Boy”; and Miller (c.1912-1965, as “Sonny Boy Williamson II”. Wikipedia

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