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 No.2
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 sugar, 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
The song Sugar Mama Blues No. 2, by Sonny Boy Williamson, expresses a man's longing for his sugar mama to come back to him. The term "sugar mama" refers to a wealthy older woman who provides financial support to a younger man. The singer in the song wants his sugar mama to bring him some granulated sugar to ease his misery. This line can be interpreted as the man being desperate for his sugar mama's love and affection to alleviate his loneliness and despair.
The second verse mentions a new grade of sugar that the sugar mama has, which the singer has grown to love. This line could be interpreted as the man feeling lucky to have experienced the love of his sugar mama. He also states that nobody else has this granulated sugar, emphasizing that he believes that he is unique and special to his sugar mama. In the third verse, the singer speaks about the widespread reputation of his sugar mama's sugar. She has apparently received many compliments for the quality of her sugar, and the bootleggers want to buy it to make whiskey. However, he implies that she has sold only a minimal amount of sugar to the bootleggers. This could be interpreted as the man holding a possessive nature towards his sugar mama and does not want to share her or her possessions with others.
The last verse highlights the man's dependency on sugar. The singer likes his coffee sweet in the morning and is crazy about his tea at night. He believes that he cannot function without his sugar, and not having it three times a day makes him feel uneasy. This line could be interpreted as the man being not only dependent on sugar but also on his sugar mama's presence in his life. In summary, the lyrics of Sugar Mama Blues No. 2 tell a story of a man's love and dependence on his sugar mama, who may have left him, causing him to feel lonely and incomplete.
Line by Line Meaning
Sugar mama, sugar mama, sugar mama please come back to me
I am pleading with you, my sweet sugar mama, to return to me.
Bring me my granulated sugar, sugar mama, and try to ease my misery
Please bring me the sugar that only you have, my sugar mama, to comfort me.
You've got this new grade of sugar, sugar mama, an you done made me love it too
You've introduced me to a new type of sugar, my sugar mama, and I can't get enough of it now.
You've got this granulated sugar, sugar mama, ain't nobody else got, but you
You possess a unique type of sugar, my sugar mama, that no one else has.
They been braggin' 'bout your sugar, sugar mama, been braggin' all over town
People are talking about your sugar, my sugar mama, and spreading the word about it.
Now, the bootleggers want you to sell 'em enough to make whiskey, but you won't sell 'em about four or five pounds
Even though bootleggers want to buy your sugar for illegal purposes, my sugar mama, you only sell small amounts to them.
I like my coffee sweet in the mornin', you know, an I'm crazy 'bout my tea at night
I prefer my coffee sweet in the morning and I am very fond of sweet tea at night.
Don't get my sugar three times a day, oh, Lord, then I don't feel right
If I am not able to have my daily dose of sugar three times a day, my sugar mama, I become uncomfortable.
Lyrics © OBO APRA/AMCOS
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