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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Elevator Woman
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Mama, five or six stories on down
Elevate me mama
Mama, five or six stories on down
Now you know everybody tells me
You must-a be the elevatin'ist woman in town
A-now an when you starts elevatin me, baby
A-you carries me so fast, I'll tell you that
Stop an let me catch my breath
Now, elevate me mama, yeah
Mama, five or six stories on down
You know ev'rybody tells me
You must-a be the elevatin-ist woman in town
A-now, you elevates me in the mo'nin, baby
You gotta elevate me late at night
An you must-a elevate me, babe
Until you are elevatin' me just right
Now, elevate me mama now
Mama, five or six stories on down
A-you know everybody tells me
You must-a be the elevatin-ist woman in town
Well now, an I went to yo'are apartment last night
You had yo'are a-elevator runnin' slow
I gave you a buzz, I want you to-a
A-take me up on the third flo'
Now elevate me baby
Mama, five or six stories on down
A-you know ev'rybody tells me
A-you must-a be the elevatin' woman in town.
The song "Elevator Woman" by Sonny Boy Williamson is a playful tribute to a woman who is an expert in elevating (taking) her man up to her apartment on the 5th or 6th floor. The lyrics use double entendres and euphemisms to describe the act of elevating as both physical transportation and sexual arousal. The singer praises the woman for her skill in elevating and suggests that she is well-known in town for her ability to please her man.
The repeated refrain of "elevate me mama" is a request for the woman to take him up to her apartment, but it also implies a desire for her to elevate him sexually. The line "you might even a-scares me to death" suggests that the woman's elevating techniques are powerful and intense. The singer also notes that he needs time to catch his breath after being elevated, further emphasizing the sexual aspect of the metaphor. The final verse of the song involves the singer asking the woman to elevate him slowly, indicating that he is aware of her expertise and trusts her to elevate him just right.
Overall, "Elevator Woman" is a lighthearted blues song with witty lyrics that use playful imagery and innuendo to describe a sexual encounter. It is an example of the traditional blues style that often incorporates humor and double entendre to describe romantic situations.
Line by Line Meaning
Elevate me mama
Take me high, mama
Mama, five or six stories on down
Go up five or six floors, mama
Now you know everybody tells me You must-a be the elevatin'ist woman in town
Everyone says that you're the best elevator operator in town, mama
A-now an when you starts elevatin me, baby You might even a-scares me to death A-you carries me so fast, I'll tell you that Stop an let me catch my breath
When you start elevating me, baby, you might make me afraid by going too fast. You carry me so quickly that I need to stop and catch my breath.
Now, elevate me mama, yeah Mama, five or six stories on down You know ev'rybody tells me You must-a be the elevatin-ist woman in town
Mama, take me high again, up five or six floors. Everyone says that you're the best in town.
A-now, you elevates me in the mo'nin, baby You gotta elevate me late at night An you must-a elevate me, babe Until you are elevatin' me just right
You elevate me in the morning, baby, and you have to elevate me late at night too. You must keep elevating me until you're doing it just right.
Well now, an I went to yo'are apartment last night You had yo'are a-elevator runnin' slow I gave you a buzz, I want you to-a A-take me up on the third flo'
Last night I went to your apartment, and your elevator was moving slowly. I called you and asked you to take me up to the third floor.
Now elevate me baby Mama, five or six stories on down A-you know ev'rybody tells me A-you must-a be the elevatin' woman in town.
Mama, take me high again, up five or six floors. You know everyone says you're the best elevator operator in town.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: WILLIE WILLIAMSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Edward Morton
There's very few harp players who keep this style alive nowadays 'cause they're far to busy showing off how skilfully fast they are piling in a hundred notes, bends, over blows and slides while these masters said it all with a few ripe notes and a bucket full of emotion and life experiences .Search YouTube and youll find a million people trying to show you how to play the blues harp and very few have that rawness and feel of the old masters. They miss the point entirely it's a shame really because there's harp player out there that the ghosts of the past still blow through but they get no recognition because they're not trendy enough for today's celebrity obsessed audiences. Maybe all that falsehood will crash and burn someday and we'll get back making honest, roots and down to earth blues. A good indicator of how much we've lost our way is to compare the amount of hits Sunny Boy has had and how many people have cared to make a commitment with the likes of ,say, Ronnie Shellist or David Barret .I rest my case.
Ramona Lujan
John Pop
Bill Scherff
You got it Mr Sonny Boy is by far the best Harp Blower . I love everything he did
EvaDStruc
I never realized that Muddy Waters' "Elevate Me Mama" was a remake. Thanks for posting!
Greg Watson
Great stuff. Thanks.
耕平竹田
渋い！ありがとうございます