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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Your Funeral And My Trial
Sonny Boy Williamson Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Because I and you are man and wife, tryin' to start a family
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
If you can't treat me no better, it gotta be your funeral and my trial
When I and you first got together, 't was on one Friday night
We spent two lovely hours together, and the world knows allright
I'm just beggin' you baby, please cut out that off the wall jive
Alright... (solo)
The good Lord made the world and everything was in it
The way my baby love is some solid sentiment
She can love to heal the sick and she can love to raise the dead
You think I'm jokin' but you better be- lieve what I say
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
Yeh you gotta treat me better, or it gotta be your funeral and my trial
The lyrics to Sonny Boy Williamson's blues song, "Your Funeral And My Trial" are about a troubled relationship between a man and a woman. The man is pleading with the woman to come home and explain herself, as they are man and wife trying to start a family. He is asking her to stop whatever "off the wall jive" she is doing, and treat him better. If she can't do this, it will lead to her funeral and his trial.
The imagery of a funeral and trial suggests that the man will be the one held responsible for the end of the relationship, even though it was the woman who treated him poorly. This highlights the societal expectations that place blame on the man in a relationship even when it is not his fault. The solo in the middle of the song adds to the emotional intensity of the lyrics and showcases Sonny Boy Williamson's exceptional harmonica playing.
Overall, "Your Funeral And My Trial" is a poignant examination of a relationship in crisis and the struggles that can arise in trying to maintain a healthy partnership. The lyrics showcase Sonny Boy Williamson's talent for painting vivid images with words, as well as his understanding of human emotion and the complexities of relationships.
Line by Line Meaning
Please come home to your daddy, and explain yourself to me
Sonny Boy Williamson is asking his wife to come home and talk to him about her behavior.
Because I and you are man and wife, tryin' to start a family
He reminds her that they are married and trying to start a family together.
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
Sonny Boy Williamson is asking her to stop acting erratic and irrational.
If you can't treat me no better, it gotta be your funeral and my trial
He warns her that if she can't treat him better, it will result in the end of their relationship.
When I and you first got together, 't was on one Friday night
He reminisces about the first time they met.
We spent two lovely hours together, and the world knows allright
He fondly remembers the time they spent together and how it was a magical time.
You know you gotta treat me better, if you don't it gotta be your funeral and my trial
He reiterates the warning he has already given her about the future of their relationship.
The good Lord made the world and everything was in it
He acknowledges the power of the divine creator who made everything in the world.
The way my baby love is some solid sentiment
He speaks passionately about the way his wife loves him.
She can love to heal the sick and she can love to raise the dead
He sees the love of his wife as something powerful, capable of miracles.
You think I'm jokin' but you better be- lieve what I say
He warns his wife not to take what he says lightly.
Yeh you gotta treat me better, or it gotta be your funeral and my trial
He reminds his wife that the future of their relationship is in her hands, and she needs to treat him better if she wants it to survive.
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: Sonny Boy Williamson
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Joan Eskins
This poor man died penniless but the music he left behind is priceless'
SoupDoggyDogg
Joan Eskins financially maybe he was poor but he was rich when it came to blowing that harmonica
2quundar
Jigov What? Please, read some books about bluesmen's life, or just watch to " Cadillac records" ( not 100% crappy, & right especially about nice suits & Cadillacs). It's not a shame to receive the money you earned. On the other hand, it is a shame not to be paid for his talent, and it is certain that these bluesmen are in this category. A starving artist is a dead artist.
2quundar
He was mean & evil ( read some from his pairs) & a great great artist. & he cared about his money, although he has never been paid enough for his work . Bluesmen are just common people. The genius comes from their astonishing talent ( & sometimes iron balls) to tell us what a common people is.
jenny_jenny_nc
Subliminal Origami Naw just a black man let down and not paid what he was owed. He travelled the world and gave to the universe. He was not always pleasant but he was a great man.
Tommy Barnes
Best posting ever!
MAs World
Ain’t nobody can play like that man 😊
Ken Copsey
The tone! No one sounds the same as Sonny Boy Williamson when they blow a harp.A master class in harmonica.
Stephanie Carr
This has to be one of the coolest, smoothest-sung threats of capital murder I have EVER heard! lol ....play that harp Sonny!!!😍😍😍
Lawrence of arabia
Was a two handed mouth instrument holding slayer.
Not sure why people disliked this, but I know this though, this guy had to be the hippest scrambeled egg & cheese with a country steak and sweet buttermilk biscuit down home harmonica player whom probably shut down a lot of other cats in his day outslaying one on one microphone house battles fo sho !!!