The two are easy to distinguish. Williamson I played the harmonica acoustically and was essentially a pre-War artist. Williamson II was entirely an electrified harpist, in the style of Little Walter, reflecting the advent of the jukebox and electrified instruments following World War II.
(Compare the albums Sonny Boy Williamson I ~~ Sonny Boy Williamson II)
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Sonny Boy Williamson I (30 March 1914 - 1 June 1948)
also known as John Lee Curtis Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, born in Jackson, Tennessee, whose first record Good Morning little School Girl was a hit in 1937. He was widely popular throughout the whole southeast of the U.S., and was practically synonymous with the blues harmonica for the next decade, making his a commonly used stage name by the time he was murdered in 1948. He is buried at the Old Blairs Chapel Church, south west of Jackson, Tennessee.
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Sonny Boy Williamson II (11 March 1908 - 25 May 1965) also known as Willie Williamson, Willie Miller, Little Boy Blue, The Goat and Footsie.
Aleck "Rice" Miller was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.
Born as Aleck Ford to Millie Ford on the Sara Jones Plantation in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his date and year of birth are a matter of uncertainty. He 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. His gravestone lists his date of birth as March 11, 1908.
He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s. Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled 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. Miller developed his style and raffish stage persona during these years. Willie Dixon recalled seeing Lockwood and Miller playing for tips in Greenville, Mississippi in the 1930s. He entertained audiences with novelties such inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands.
In 1941 Miller was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour 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 (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 (this is made somewhat less likely, however, by the fact that Miller was certainly older than Williamson even if one does not accept the 1899 birthdate.) Whatever the methodology, Miller became commonly known as "Sonny Boy Williamson", and Lockwood and the rest of his band were billed as the King Biscuit Boys.
In 1949 he relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas and lived with his sister and her husband, Howlin' Wolf (later, for Checker Records, he did a parody of Howlin' Wolf entitled "Like Wolf"). Sonny Boy started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950 selling the elixir Hadacol.
Sonny Boy also brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis: Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Robert Nighthawk and others, to perform on KWEM Radio.
In the 1940s Williamson married Mattie Gordon, who remained his wife until his death.
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. Sonny Boy 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 early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze, recording with The Yardbirds and The Animals, and appearing on several TV broadcasts throughout Europe. According 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. Robert Palmer's "Deep Blues" mentions that during this tour he allegedly stabbed a man during a street fight and left the country abruptly.
Sonny Boy took a liking to the European fans, and while there had a custom-made, two-tone suit tailored personally for him, along with a bowler hat, matching umbrella, and an attaché case for his harmonicas. He appears credited as "Big Skol" on Roland Kirk's live album 'Kirk in Copenhagen' (1963). One of his final recordings from England, in 1964, featured him singing "I'm Trying To Make London My Home" with Hubert Sumlin providing the guitar. Due to his many years of relating convoluted, highly fictionalized accounts of his life to friends and family, upon his return to the Delta, some expressed disbelief upon hearing of Sonny Boy's touring across the Atlantic, visiting Europe, seeing the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and other landmarks, and recording there.
Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed around Helena, Arkansas. As fellow musicians Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis waited at the KFFA studios for Williamson on May 25, 1965, the 12:15 broadcast time was closing in and Sonny Boy was nowhere in sight. Peck left the radio station and headed out to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he'd been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before.
Williamson is buried on New Africa Rd. just outside Tutwiler, Mississippi at the site of the former Whitman Chapel cemetery.
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Born Blind
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You're talking about your woman, I wish to God that you could see mine
Every time the little girl start to loving, she bring eyesight to the blind
Lord, her daddy must been a millionaire, 'cause I can tell by the way she walk
Her daddy must been a millionaire, because I can tell by the way she walk
Every time she start to loving, the deaf and dumb begin to talk
I remember one Friday morning, we was lying down across the bed
Man in the next room a-dying, stopped dying and lift up his head, and said,
Every time she start to loving, she bring eyesight to the blind
(Spoken: All right and all right, now. Lay it on me, lay it on me, lay it on me
Oh lordy, what a woman, what a woman!)
Yes, I declare she's pretty and the whole state knows she's fine
Man, I declare she's pretty, God knows I declare she's fine
Every time she starts to loving, whoo, she brings eyesight to the blind
(I've got to get out of here, now, let's go, let's go, let's go now)
The lyrics to Sonny Boy Williamson's “Born Blind" tell the story of a man's love for his woman, whom he describes as being so beautiful that every time she starts loving, she brings eyesight to the blind. The lyrics suggest that the woman's beauty is so powerful that it can heal the blind, deaf and dumb. The singer is so proud of his woman that he wishes the world could see just how beautiful she is. He suggests that her father must have been a millionaire because of the way she walks and the effect she has on others.
In the second verse, the singer recounts a time when he and his woman were lying on a bed and a man in the next room who was dying stopped dying and lifted up his head to comment on the woman's beauty. The third verse repeats the sentiment that the woman's beauty is powerful enough to heal the blind. The song ends with an exclamation about the woman's beauty and the idea that the singer must leave.
The lyrics suggest that the woman's beauty is so powerful that it can heal the blind, deaf, and dumb. It is a testament to the woman's beauty that is so great that it can break down barriers and heal physical ailments. The song also suggests that beauty is a universal language that transcends boundaries and can unite people.
Line by Line Meaning
You're talking about your woman, I wish to God that you could see mine
You boast about your woman, but I wish you could witness the beauty of mine
Every time the little girl start to loving, she bring eyesight to the blind
My woman's love is so powerful that even the blind can see when she shows affection
Her daddy must been a millionaire, because I can tell by the way she walk
My woman exudes confidence and grace in the way she moves, indicating she was raised in comfort and class
Every time she start to loving, the deaf and dumb begin to talk
My woman's love is so intense that even the speechless are moved to express themselves
Man in the next room a-dying, stopped dying and lift up his head, and said, "Lord, ain't she pretty, and the whole state know she fine!"
Even a man on his deathbed couldn't help but appreciate my woman's beauty and charm
Yes, I declare she's pretty and the whole state knows she's fine
My woman is widely acknowledged for her beauty and allure
Every time she starts to loving, whoo, she brings eyesight to the blind
My woman's love has such a profound impact that even those who can't physically see are affected by it
Contributed by Ian N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
P. David Hornik
Amazing recording, incredible soul.
Noe Hernandez Zuñiga
Born Blind (1957)
Robert Lockwood Jr., Luther Tucker
GuitarsOtis Spann
PianoWillie Dixon
BassFred Below
Drums