Sonny Boy Williamson II - 'The Chess Years'

Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) 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, Big Joe Williams, Elmore James and Robert Lockwood Jr 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, smoked a lot of cigarettes and weed, hoboed around the country, and had a successful radio show for 15 years.  

He entertained audiences with novelties such as inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands.  He toured Europe to great acclaim, and wrote, played, and sang some of the greatest blues ever etched into vinyl records.

Simply stated: No one played delta blues harp like Sonny Boy.

Fun Fact: On local gigs in Clarksdale, Mississippi, 13-year-old Ike Turner backed Sonny Boy on piano.

Sonny Boy's delivery was sly 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 biting and caustic wit, with largely autobiographical lyrics.

By all accounts, he was a moody, bitter, and suspicious man, no one wove such a confusing web of misinformation as Sonny Boy Williamson II.  Even his birthdate (stated as December 5, 1899, in most reference books, but some sources claim his birth may have been in 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.

Sonny Boy Williamson I 

Not only was Sonny Boy a pioneering blues harp player, he was also a pioneer in the field of identity theft (nothing new under the sun).  In 1941, he started performing on the King Biscuit Time radio show in Helena, Arkansas, where he gained widespread recognition.  There he adopted the name Sonny Boy Williamson while on the King Biscuit Time show, which was already the name of another popular Chicago blues musician, John Lee Curtis Williamson, later known as Sonny Boy Williamson I). The real Sonny Boy Williamson will the subject of a future post.

Despite his earlier successes, Williamson didn’t record until 1951 when Lillian McMurry’s newly established Trumpet label in Jackson, Mississippi, released “Eyesight to the Blind,” “Mighty Long Time,” “Nine Below Zero,” and “Mr. Down Child,” among others.  These early recordings, now widely regarded as classics of the genre, showcase Williamson at his peak; a laconic, often biting, caustic, and sarcastic vocalist, as well as a masterful instrumentalist.

In 1954, the Chess label in Chicago purchased Williamson’s contract, and he soon moved north, playing club dates in cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia.  His several hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s such as "Fattening Frogs for Snakes", "Don’t Start Me to Talkin’", "Your Funeral and My Trial", "One Way Out" and "99" were followed by successful European tours in 1963 and 1964.  The name game continued; on his passport, he was “Sonny Boy Williams,” and he was frequently billed in Europe as Sonny Boy Williamson II.

He greatly enjoyed the appreciation of European blues fans, touring in England, Denmark, Germany, and Poland and performing in various concerts with the Animals and the Yardbirds.  He seriously considered settling permanently in England, but he returned instead to Helena, where he again appeared on the King Biscuit show.

On May 25, 1965, he was found dead by drummer James "Peck" Curtis after Williamson had failed to arrive at the station for a performance.

He is buried in Tutwiler, Mississippi, where the birthdate on his tombstone is almost certainly incorrect and the death date wrong beyond any doubt.  Several names are listed, but Aleck Miller is given precedence.

'Sonny Boy Williamson – The Chess Years' is a 4 CD set released in 1991 on the Charly Records label, as part of their "RED BOX" series. These are the classics that originally appeared on Checker Records (a subsidiary of Chess Records) between 1955 and 1964.  The CDs are in chronological order, with all the alternatives and unreleased material on CDs 3 and 4.  The last recordings with Buddy Guy's band the summer before he died are amazing, and sound almost contemporary to 2025 ears.

Charly left the original-press sound intact, so they're warm and a little muddy, as they would have sounded coming out of a jukebox in the mid-1950s/early1960s, which gives them a certain vibe and charm.  

I like that Charly didn't have an audio engineer "clean" them up with a sonic process, especially with the dreaded CEDAR noise reduction.  Actually, I like to see the CEDAR logo on the back of a CD; it tells me not to buy it.

For the freeload, what was the last song that was stuck in your head, a.k.a. an "earworm"?