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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Stop Breakin Down
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down
Stop breakin' down, now
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down, yeah
I don't believe you really, really love me
I think you just like the way my music sound, now
Now, an I'm gonna tell you somethin', baby
I know you can't love me, baby
You gon' try, an love some other man, too
But stop breakin' down
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down, now
I don't believe you really, really love me
I think you just like the way my music sound, now
Now, I'm gonna tell you somethin' else, baby
I know you ain't goin' to like
But when I quit you this time, baby
You know I ain't gon', never take you back
But stop breakin' down
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down
I don't believe you really, really love me
I think you just like the way my music sound, yeah
Now, an the reason I know you's alright, baby mm
A-because you told me so
An I don't care what people say 'bout you
I love you, a-ev'rywhere you go
But you must stop breakin' down, now
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down
I don't believe you really, really love me
I think you just like the way my music sound.
The song "Stop Breaking Down" by Sonny Boy Williamson I is a blues song about a woman who is only interested in the singer because of his music. The lyrics suggest that she doesn't truly love him, but rather enjoys the way he plays and sings. The singer warns the woman that he knows she will try to love other men as well, and that he won't take her back if she leaves him.
The song has a sense of resignation about it, as the singer seems to have accepted that his relationship with the woman is doomed. He loves her regardless of her motives, but he knows that he can't force her to love him back. The repetition of the plea to stop breaking down suggests that the singer is begging the woman to change her ways, but also acknowledges that it's unlikely to happen.
Overall, the lyrics of "Stop Breaking Down" convey a sense of sadness and disappointment, as the singer laments the loss of a love that never truly existed.
Line by Line Meaning
Stop breakin' down
Please stop ruining our relationship
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down
I urge you to stop breaking down our relationship, my dear
Stop breakin' down, now
Right now, I implore you to stop trying to break our relationship
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down, yeah
My dear, I plead with you to stop trying to ruin our relationship
I don't believe you really, really love me
I doubt your true intentions are genuinely based on love for me
I think you just like the way my music sound, now
I believe that you're only attracted to me because of my music
Now, an I'm gonna tell you somethin', baby
I will now courageous tell you something important, my dear
A-baby, that you really, really can't do
My dear, there's something you simply cannot do
I know you can't love me, baby
I'm sure you're not capable of truly loving me
You gon' try, an love some other man, too
You're going to try and love someone else along with me
But stop breakin' down
I insist that you stop trying to destroy our relationship
Now, I'm gonna tell you somethin' else, baby
There's something else I need to tell you, my dear
I know you ain't goin' to like
I'm aware that you won't be pleased to hear it
But when I quit you this time, baby
But know that this time, when I leave you
You know I ain't gon', never take you back
I will never reconsider taking you back
Now, an the reason I know you's alright, baby mm
The reason I'm certain that you're okay, my dear
A-because you told me so
Is because of the affirmation that you gave me
An I don't care what people say 'bout you
I don't care about what others say about you
I love you, a-ev'rywhere you go
I will love you wherever you go
But you must stop breakin' down, now
However, you absolutely have to stop trying to break our relationship
Baby, ple-ease stop breakin' down
My dear, I beg of you to stop trying to ruin our relationship
I don't believe you really, really love me
I honestly don't think you genuinely love me
I think you just like the way my music sound, yeah
It's my belief that you're only attracted to me because of my music
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: WILLIE WILLIAMSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
stevan bozic
jeeesss,jeeesss