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Sonny Boy Williamson II

Aleck Ford, a.k.a. Alex "Rice" Miller, "Sonny Boy Williamson II"
(unknown – May 25, 1965)

Sonny Boy Williamson's vast and interesting larger-than-life story is only matched by Sonny Boy's tall tales about his vast and interesting larger-than-life story. He claims he was born in 1899, but the details are thin. To ride off of recognition, He took the name of another famous blues man, Sonny Boy Williamson (I), though he never admitted it. Eventually, though, it didn't matter, as his fame and notoriety far surpassed that of his unwitting predecessor. Sonny Boy was a true delta sharecropper, working the fields and playing his blues harp with the likes of Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and Robert Johnson himself. Maybe. (The details are unclear). He started his professional musical life as a radio DJ in Helena, Arkansas hosting the favorite King Biscuit Time radio show, which is still on the air to this day! He ended up at Chess Records, possibly the most legendary Blues record label to have ever existed. At Chess he made his mark playing a unique and fresh style of Blues harp.

Like many Blues men in the sixties, he crossed the Atlantic to play his music in England, which was experiencing a exploding interest in blues that would soon give birth to the British rock n' roll craze. While in England, Williamson played and recorded with the Animals and the cult-legendary band the Yardbirds. Eric Clapton, who was playing with the Yardbirds at the time, recalled in his autobiography "Eric" that he was enamored to meet one of his musical heros. Trying to impress Sonny with his knowledge, he told the bluesman that he knew his real name, to which Sonny Boy drew a knife and threatened Clapton! The Yardbird's recording session with Sonny Boy Williamson was released as an album. A link to the CD can be found below.

Some of the greatest blues harmonica players that lived learned straight from Sonny Boy Williamson's master harp skills, including Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter and even James Cotton. Sonny Boy II is buried in Tutwiler, Mississippi, fittingly, just a mile from the place where W.C. Handy first heard, (and became the first to write about) Blues music.

Notable songs by Sonny Boy Williamson II
Sonny Boy Williamson & the Yardbirds      MP3 Download(s)      Buy CD