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.
more on wikipedia
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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.
more on wikipedia
Please Don't Go
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby, please don't go
Baby, your mind done gone
Well, your mind done gone
Left the county farm
You had the shackles on
Baby, please don't go
For be a dog
For be a dog
For be a dog
To git you way down here
I make you walk the log
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby, please don't go
For be a dog
For be a dog
For be a dog
Git you way down here
Make you walk the log
Baby, please don't go
Now how I feel right now
My baby leavin'
On that midnight train
And I'm cryin'
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Baby, please don't go
Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby, please don't go
For be a dog
For be a dog
For be a dog
To git you way down here
I make you walk the log
Baby, please don't go, yeah
Awright
The lyrics of "Baby Don't Worry" by Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds are about a plea to a lover not to leave the singer and go to New Orleans. The repeated chorus of "Baby, please don't go" emphasizes the desperation and urgency in the singer's request. The second verse references the lover's troubled mind and departure from a county farm while in shackles, suggesting some kind of criminal past or difficulty. The third verse features a threatening tone, with the singer asserting that they would do anything, even become a dog, to keep the lover from leaving, and making them "walk the log," which could suggest some kind of punishment or sacrifice.
The emotions conveyed in this song are raw and visceral, with a clear sense of pleading and despair. The repetition of the chorus underscores the significance of the request and the urgency in the singer's voice. The lyrics also reference the possibility of danger and violence, with the suggestion of a criminal past or punishment for leaving. Overall, the lyrics paint a picture of a fraught and intense relationship, with one half begging the other not to leave, no matter the cost.
Line by Line Meaning
Baby, please don't go
I am pleading with you to not leave me
Baby, please don't go
I am begging you to stay with me
Baby, please don't go
Once again, I am urging you to not go
Down to New Orleans
Do not go to New Orleans
You know I love you so
I love you deeply and you are aware of it
Baby, your mind done gone
Your mind is not present or in a stable state
Well, your mind done gone
Your mind has disappeared or become chaotic
Well, your mind done gone
Once again, your mind is not functioning normally
Left the county farm
You left the place you were staying at
You had the shackles on
You were previously restrained or imprisoned
For be a dog
I would take on the lowest form of existence
For be a dog
Once again, I would degrade myself to the level of a dog
For be a dog
Again, I would become a dog if it means keeping you from leaving
To git you way down here
To bring you back to me
I make you walk the log
I would make you go through difficult and painful trials
Now how I feel right now
I am currently experiencing intense emotions
My baby leavin'
My significant other is departing
On that midnight train
They are leaving on a train at midnight
And I'm cryin'
I am shedding tears
Awright
Alright
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Joseph Lee Williams
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
charles barbosa
Clássico!!!
Philharpo
John Lee (THE REAL Sonny Boy) Williamson playing with Big Joe Williams. Classic early Chicago Blues
Brian J. Carnevale
Big Joe Williams was an American Delta Blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. An influential musician is known for “Baby Please Don’t Go”, “Crawlin’ King Snake, and “Peach Orchard Mama”, he was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame back in 1992, ten years after his death in 1982 at the age of 79.
Jeffrey MCCOMAS
All I know is that that isn't Rice Miller (Sonny boy Williamson deuce)
jorge cunha
This is, Big Joe Williams!
Luis Alberto Mezarina
I don't know who plays the harp , nor who is singing, but it's a good rendición of a great song!
jgsimmons6
Big Joe sings. Superb.
Emmanuel Barache
John Lee Williamson aka Sonny Boy Williamson 1 is playing harp here, Big Joe Williams plays the guitar and sings
jgsimmons6
This is Big Joe in fine forn.
Eric Salva
The picture doesn't match the song. The song was not sung by SW2.