Sonny
Boy Williamson II was born on the Sara Jones
Plantation near
Glendora,
Mississippi in
Tallahatchie County,
Mississippi.
The date and year of his birth are a matter of some
uncertainty. Miller claimed to have been born on
December 5, 1899, but one researcher, David Evans,
claims to have found census record evidence that he was
born around 1912. Miller's gravestone has his birthdate
as
March 11,
1908.
Miller
lived and worked with his
sharecropper
stepfather, Jim Miller, and mother, Millie Ford, until
the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, he trave
led
around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered
Big Joe Williams,
Elmore James
and
Robert Lockwood, Jr.,
also known as
Robert Junior Lockwood, who would
play guitar on his later
Checker Records
sides. He was also associated with
Robert Johnson
during this period.
Williamson
developed
his style and raffish stage persona during these years.
Willie Dixon
recalled seeing Lockwood and Sonny Boy, with an
amplified harmonica, in
Greenville,
Mississippi in
the 1930s. He captivated audiences with tricks such as
holding his harmonica between his top lip and nose and
playing with no hands.
Williamson lived in
Twist, Arkansas
for a time with
Howlin' Wolf's
sister Mary Burnett and taught Wolf to play harmonica.
(Later, for Chess, Williamson did a parody of Howlin'
Wolf entitled "Like Wolf.") In 1941 Miller was hired to
play the
King Biscuit Time
show on radio station
KFFA
in
Helena, Arkansas
with Lockwood.
It
was at this point that the radio program's sponsor, Max
Moore, began billing Miller as Sonny Boy Williamson,
apparently in an attempt to capitalize on the fame of
the well known Chicago-based harmonica player and singer
John Lee Williamson (see
Sonny Boy Williamson
I). Although
John Lee Williamson was a major blues star who had
already released dozens of successful and widely
influential records under the name "Sonny Boy
Williamson" from 1937 onward, Aleck Miller would later
claim to have been the first to use the name, and some
blues scholars believe that Miller's assertion he was
born in 1899 was a ruse to convince audiences he was old
enough to have used the name before John Lee Williamson,
who was born in 1914. Whatever the methodology, Miller
became known as "Sonny Boy Williamson," (universally
distinguished by blues fans and musicians as "Sonny Boy
Williamson number two" or "Sonny Boy Williamson
the second") and Lockwood and the rest of his
band were the King Biscuit Boys. His growing renown in
the mid-south took him places such as
West Memphis,
Arkansas, where
he performed on a KWEM radio show selling the elixir
Hadacol.
Williamson's first recording session took place in 1951
for
Lillian McMurry
of
Jackson, Mississippi's
Trumpet Records
(three years after the death of John Lee Williamson,
which for the first time allowed some legitimacy to
Miller's carefully worded claim to being "the one and
only Sonny Boy Williamson".) McMurry later erected
Williamson's headstone, near
Tutwiler,
Mississippi, in
1977.
When
Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Sonny Boy's recording
contract was yielded to its creditors, who sold it to
Chess Records
in
Chicago, Illinois.
Williamson had begun developing a following in Chicago
beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of
Elmore James's band. It was during his Chess years that
he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim, recording
about 70 songs for Chess subsidiary
Checker Records
from 1955 to 1964. In the 1960s he toured Europe during
the height of the British blues craze, recording with
The Yardbirds
and
The Animals.
Accoring to the Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the
Gods, while in England Sonny Boy set his hotel room
on fire while trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee
percolator. During this tour he allegedly stabbed a man
during a street fight and left the country
abruptly.(Robert Palmer's Deep Blues)
In the
1940s Williamson married Mattie Gordon, who remained his
wife until his death on May 25, 1965 (his headstone
erroneously gives his date of death as June 23, 1965) in
Helena, Arkansas. Williamson was characterized by a
hip-flask of whiskey, a pistol, a knife, a foul mouth,
and a short temper. He had always worn fancier suits
than he could afford, and his tour of Europe allowed him
further embellishment, adding a finely tailored two-tone
suit and a bowler hat to his unique, grey-goateed image.
Williamson is buried on New Africa Rd. just outside
Tutwiler,
Mississippi at
the site of the former Whitman Chapel cemetery. His
headstone was provided by Ms.
Lillian Mc Murray,
owner of Trumpet Records.
Rice Miller
was, however, notable as a highly original blues
songwriter, and his laconic harmonica style and sly
vocals mark him as a true artist. Much of his best work
exhibits a solidly swinging beat and a rich dialogue
between blues harp, guitar, piano, and percussion. His
use of space, his timing, and his tone place him among
the greatest of the blues-harp players.
Some
of his better known songs include "Don't Start Me To
Talkin'" (his only major hit, it reached the #3 position
on the national Billboard R&B charts in 1955),"Fattenin'
Frogs for Snakes", "Keep It To Yourself", "Your Funeral
and My Trial", "Bye Bye Bird", "Nine Below Zero", "Help
Me", and the infamous "Little Village", with dialogue
'unsuitable for airplay' with
Leonard Chess.
His song "Eyesight
to the Blind"
was performed by
The Who
as a key song in their
rock opera
Tommy
(the only song in that opus not written by a band
member) and it was later covered on the
Aerosmith
album
Honkin' on Bobo.[2]
His "One
Way Out",
reworked from
Elmore James
and recorded twice in the early 1960s, became
popularized by
The Allman Brothers
Band in the
early 1970s.
In
interviews in
The Last Waltz,
roots-rockers
The Band
recount jamming with Miller prior to their initial fame
as Bob Dylan's electric backing band, and making
never-realized plans to become his backing band.
Influence
Sonny Boy
Williamson II has had a big influence on modern day
blues and blues rock artists and other legendary
artists, as is shown by the number of his songs that are
still covered. Among many others:
Nine Below Zero
took their band name from his song.
References
