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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My Little Cornelius
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Please take this letter down to Brownville for me
Special deliver man, special deliver Man
Please take this letter down to Brownville, for me
Now that you can tell Miss Cornelius, I'm up here in Chicago
Oh, but I'm just as blue as I can be
Special deliver man, she may not be at home
Special deliver man, she may not be home
Not but you need to worry about knockin' on her door
Now but you could just take it back to the office
Beause Miss Cornelia goes to school, you know
Now give me, 9-0-9
I want to use your line a while
Now, give me, 9-0-9
Lord, I want to use your line a while
Now that I want to talk with Miss Cornelia Burns
Because she just my little angel child
Now special deliver man, after you've done what I told
Lord, then I want you to ride away
Special deliver man, after you've done what I've told you
Lord, an I want you to ride away
Now, that's the reason you hear me sing the blues
About my little Cornelia Burns, ev'ryday
In Sonny Boy Williamson's song "My Little Cornelius," the singer is asking a special delivery man to take a letter down to Brownsville for him. He informs the man to let Miss Cornelius know that he's in Chicago and feeling blue. The singer also acknowledges that Miss Cornelius might not be at home, and if not, he tells the delivery man not to worry about knocking on her door, as she attends school. Lastly, the singer requests to use the phone to call Miss Cornelia Burns, who he refers to as his "little angel child."
The lyrics of "My Little Cornelius" are a blend of blues and ballad-style storytelling. It appears that the singer is expressing love and longing for Miss Cornelius, but their relationship may be at a distance due to the singer's location in Chicago. The use of the special delivery man as a messenger highlights the importance and urgency of the message that the singer wants to convey to Miss Cornelius. Overall, the lyrics suggest a deep emotional connection between the singer and Miss Cornelius, despite their physical separation.
Line by Line Meaning
Special deliver man, special deliver man
Asking the mailman to deliver his letter with urgency.
Please take this letter down to Brownville for me
Requesting the mailman to deliver his letter to a person in Brownville.
Now that you can tell Miss Cornelius, I'm up here in Chicago
Instructing the mailman to communicate his whereabouts to Miss Cornelius.
Oh, but I'm just as blue as I can be
Expressing how sad and downhearted he is.
Special deliver man, she may not be at home
Acknowledging the possibility of Miss Cornelius not being home.
Not but you need to worry about knockin' on her door
Assuring the mailman that he does not need to try to knock on her door.
Now but you could just take it back to the office
Telling the mailman that he can return the letter to the office in case he cannot deliver it.
Beause Miss Cornelia goes to school, you know
Explaining why Miss Cornelia may not be at home to receive the letter.
Now give me, 9-0-9
Asking for someone's phone number (909 in this case).
I want to use your line a while
Asking to use the phone line for a while.
Lord, I want to use your line a while
Adding emphasis to his request to use the phone line.
Now that I want to talk with Miss Cornelia Burns
Explaining the purpose of wanting to use the phone line.
Because she just my little angel child
Describing Miss Cornelia Burns as a beloved and cherished person.
Now special deliver man, after you've done what I told
Instructing the mailman to ride away after he has delivered the letter or returned it to the office.
Lord, then I want you to ride away
Adding emphasis to his request for the mailman to leave after completing his task.
Now, that's the reason you hear me sing the blues
Explaining the reason why he sings the blues, which is the sadness caused by missing his little angel child in Brownville.
About my little Cornelia Burns, ev'ryday
Reiterating the name of the person he misses and how often he thinks about her.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
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