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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Sugar Mama Blues
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Sugar mama, sugar mama, sugar mama please come back to me
Bring me my granulated sugar1, sugar mama, and try to ease my misery
You've got this new grade of sugar, sugar mama, an you done made me love it too
You've got this new grade of sugar, sugar mama, an you done made me love it too
You've got this granulated sugar, sugar mama, ain't nobody else got, but you
They been braggin' 'bout your sugar, sugar mama, braggin' all over town
Now, the bootleggers want you to sell 'em enough to make whiskey,
but you won't sell 'em about four or five pounds
I like my coffee sweet in the mornin', you know, an I'm crazy 'bout my tea at night
I like my coffee sweet in the mornin', you know, an I'm crazy 'bout my tea at night
Don't get my sugar three times a day, oh, Lord, then I don't feel right
In "Sugar Mama Blues," Sonny Boy Williamson sings about his desire for his sugar mama to return to him. He pleads with her to bring him some granulated sugar to ease his misery. He explains that his sugar mama has introduced him to a new grade of sugar that he now loves, but nobody else has it except for her. The song also references how others have been bragging about his sugar mama's sugar and how bootleggers want to buy some to make whiskey.
The lyrics have a literal and figurative meaning. The literal meaning is that Sonny Boy Williamson wants his sugar mama to come back to him and bring him some granulated sugar. The figurative meaning is that the sugar represents something else, perhaps love or affection. The way he talks about the sugar and how nobody else has it, and how he needs it three times a day to feel right can be interpreted as a metaphor for the way he needs his sugar mama's love.
Line by Line Meaning
Sugar mama, sugar mama, sugar mama please come back to me
I am pleading for my beloved sugar mama to return to me.
Bring me my granulated sugar, sugar mama, and try to ease my misery
Please bring me the specific type of sugar that only you have, my dear sugar mama. It may help to ease my sadness.
You've got this new grade of sugar, sugar mama, an you done made me love it too
You introduced me to a new type of sugar, sugar mama, and I have fallen in love with it just like I have with you.
You've got this granulated sugar, sugar mama, ain't nobody else got, but you
No one else possesses the type of granulated sugar that you have, sugar mama. You are unique and special in that way.
They been braggin' 'bout your sugar, sugar mama, been braggin' all over town
There are people who are spreading the word about your exceptional sugar, sugar mama, throughout the whole town.
Now, the bootleggers want you to sell 'em enough to make whiskey, but you won't sell 'em about four or five pounds
Some bootleggers are interested in buying large amounts of your sugar, sugar mama, to make whiskey. However, you only sell them small amounts, around four or five pounds.
I like my coffee sweet in the mornin', you know, an I'm crazy 'bout my tea at night
I prefer my coffee to be sweet in the morning, and I am particularly fond of drinking tea at night.
Don't get my sugar three times a day, oh, Lord, then I don't feel right
If I do not receive my sugar at least three times per day, I feel unwell and uneasy.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: JOHN LEE HOOKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Cora Visser
brilliant i do love it with my whole heart.
Ricketyrawd dawg
this is beyond great!!!!!!!!!
martelo prego
sou brasileiro e adoro issssssssssssssssssssssssoooooooooooooooooooooooo
Edward M
Great upload! There are no many videos of Sonny Boy Williamson I in YouTube. Thank you very much! He was fantastic. I wonder if the two Sonny Boys ever met. They are both amazing.
David Lamb
There would have been a fight.
Basically Alex Rice Miller stole John Lee's Williamson's, name, id and used his rep to get gigs.
Charalampos Tseronis
There is no video of Sonny Boy Williamson I in youtube or anywhere else
Painless Removals
No doubt here which Sonny Boy this is. Sounds nothing like Rice Miller. God knows why he stole the name - he was an incomprehensible old git - but when he put the harp to his lips - pure magic spilled out. So the name matters not - both were incredible players & we should just listen to their music & be thankful they were put on this earth to touch us so deeply with their songs. As for the dislikes - these people should take the sawdust out of their ears & listen with their hearts or do us all a favour & move on to something more akin to their sensibilities...
Douglas Paterson
@pckpat Why argue they both were damn good!
Weiss Hal
The real John Lee "'Sonny Boy'" Williamson, there is no substitute!!!!
The Brazilian Atlantis
Identity theft.