June 6, 2025

Sonny Boy Williamson II retrospective with Giles Robson and Jim Basnight

Giles Robson and Jim Basnight join me on episode 136 for a retrospective on Alex ‘Rice’ Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson II).

Information on Sonny Boy’s early life is sketchy. Sonny Boy was likely born in 1912 and had a hard upbringing working on a plantation before becoming a travelling musician. Arriving in Helena, Arkansas, he found fame performing on the King Biscuit Time radio show before making his first recordings with Trumpet Records at age 38 in 1951. Sonny Boy made his classic cuts for Checker Records (a subsidiary of Chess) in 1955.

He then toured Europe in 1963/64, becoming a celebratory in England and having a huge impact on the British Blues Boom.

Returning to Helena, where he died in 1965, Sonny boy is one of the true giants not only of the harmonica but also the blues, with his charismatic vocals, songwriting and enigmatic charm.

Links:

Giles Robson: https://gilesrobson.com

Jim Basnight: https://www.jimbasnightmusic.com/

Extract from Bill Donohue biography: https://www.furious.com/perfect/sonnyboy.html

Chris Strachwitz remembers Sonny Boy: https://arhoolie.org/chris-strachwitz-remembers-sonny-boy-williamson/

Bob Corritore photo gallery of Sonny Boy: https://bobcorritore.com/photos/sonny-boy-williamson-ii/

Sonny Boy discography: https://sonnyboywilliamson2.blogspot.com/2013/08/sonny-boy-williamsons-chronological.html

Macie J Blues blogspot on Sonny Boy: https://sonnyboywilliamson-maciejblues.blogspot.com/

Videos:

Possibly the late Chris Strachwitz recordings of Sonny Boy: ‘Last Sessions’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLco7ZmxqUs&t=10s

Concert from the Jazz House, Wiesbaden, Germany, November, 1963: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGGR5l4zOzw&t=1s

‘Solo Harp’ album, from German photographer Stefanie Wiesand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6RkAlhX7fg

Robbie Robertson recalls meeting Sonny Boy shortly before he died: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90-O6c20PLk

The grave of Sonny Boy, with comments from Giles Robson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-XQwpBTGRI

Bye Bye Bird in Europe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZArN9y5qZc

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
--------------------------------
Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com

Support the show

01:57 - Giles Robson returns to the podcast from his first appearance way back on episode 3 and has been busy as ever

02:38 - Giles released a duo album with John Primer in 2024: Ten Chicago Blues Classics, where John plays rhythm guitar

04:12 - When Neil first saw Giles perform he played the Sonny Boy song: My One Room Cabin

04:52 - The influence Sonny Boy has had on Giles’ career and comparisons with Little Walter

05:10 - Sonny Boy prompted Giles to play purely acoustic harmonica

06:42 - Sonny Boy was highly admired during his time and the positive write-up he received in the UK press at the time

07:31 - Sonny Boy dominated the European American Folk Blues tours

07:39 - Sonny Boy was received virtually no press coverage about him in the US

09:09 - Jim asks Giles aout a comparison between Walter Horton and Sonny Boy, and Big Walter may have taught Sonny Boy some harmonica

10:53 - Jim Basinger is a singer, guitar player and bandleader, who doesn’t play harmonica

11:48 - Jim is writing a biography on Sonny Boy, who Jim sees as a complete artist, not just a harmonica player

12:56 - It will be a comprehensive 500 page biography on Sonny Boy

13:53 - The biography is likely to be released either late 2025 or in 2026

14:27 - Jim is also looking at making a documentary film on Sonny Boy after the book is published

15:14 - There has previously been a biography released on Sonny Boy, by William (Bill) E Donoghue: Fessor Mojo's Don't Start Me To Talkin’

15:33 - The Bill Donoghue biography is reasonably short. Jim was involved with this and Jim’s book will be more in-depth

16:15 - Bill Donoghue had wanted to produce a documentary film on Sonny Boy

16:56 - Lillian McMurry, of Trumpet Records, had a headstone placed on Sonny Boy’s grave in 1980, which probably doesn’t show an accurate year of birth

17:08 - Gravestone correctly shows Sonny Boy died in 1965

17:59 - Sonny Boy was the youngest of 21 children, likely born in late 1912 or early 1913

18:58 - Brother was the one who named Sonny Boy ‘Rice’ due to Sonny Boy’s love of rice

19:55 - Sonny Boy probably lived until the age of 52

20:06 - Sonny Boy’s real name was Alex Miller (not Aleck, as written on his gravestone)

20:17 - Born in Glendora, Mississippi

20:25 - Sonny Boy ‘mis-represented’ facts about his life to the journalists who interviewed him and there isn’t reliable documentation showing the truth

21:16 - Family later moved to Money, Mississippi where Sonny Boy worked on a plantation until age 17, where conditions were very tough and 12 out of 18 people didn’t make it past age 18

22:50 - Sonny Boy looked older than he was due to his rough life and lifestyle, including alcohol abuse

23:59 - Didn’t have a strong concept of time or dates

24:27 - Jim tells of how Sonny Boy’s early life made him an habitual liar as he had to evade the law and other sources of trouble

24:55 - Started the life as a wandering musician after leaving the plantation at age 17, which made him an outlaw at that time in the US

27:27 - Travelled up to Memphis where met other musicians, including Howling Wolf, marrying his sister

27:59 - Sonny Boy has various recorded marriages and likely a child

28:27 - Travelled from town to town, centred around the town of Greenwood

30:08 - Teamed-up with Robert Lockwood, which led to Sonny Boy working on the King Biscuit Time radio show

30:47 - Sonny Boy reportedly stabbed a white man who was “trying to kill him” and he had to flee the Greenwood area

32:44 - Moved around until arriving at Helena, Arkansas, where the radio station KFFA was located, which ran the King Biscuit Time show

34:27 - Sonny Boy was on the King Biscuit Time show for about two years, and Pinetop Perkins played with him on that

35:01 - Sonny Boy played amplified harmonica on the King Biscuit Time show, and so was one of the earliest to play amplified harp

35:50 - Only recordings of Sonny Boy playing through a mic are his recordings on Chess records

36:23 - Sonny Boy probably recorded his amplified tracks with Chess using a Shure Slim X mic, which Giles doesn’t rate as a good harp mic

36:41 - Difference with Sonny Boy and Little Walter playing amplified is that Little Walter ‘played the amp’ whereas Sonny Boy just used the mic for amplification

37:40 - The early photo of Sonny boy holding a mic is from 1939 when he had a radio show in Illinois

38:10 - Jim thinks the Storyville recordings capture the best sound of Sonny Boy

39:44 - There are no known recordings of his playing of the King Biscuit Time radio show

40:27 - Sonny Boy falsely claimed to have recorded a Jimmy McCracklin in 1927 during the Wiesbaden concert in Germany

41:06 - On whether Sonny Boy ‘stole’ the name Sonny Boy Williamson from John Lee Williamson

41:35 - Giles talks about how the world was different and the circles Sonny Boy moved in weren’t always the most honest

42:39 - Jim emphasises the point that the alleged Sonny Boy stabbing had a profound effect upon Sonny Boy wanting to remain anonymous

43:30 - Sonny Boy reputedly knew John Lee Williamson from a young age

43:53 - John Lee Williamson released records first so was known through those and Rice Miller used the name Sonny Boy Williamson to market himself

44:55 - Memphis Slim told a story where another performer used his name, and also someone who used Little Walter’s name

45:36 - Sonny Boy also used various other names to perform under

46:21 - John Lee Williamson visited the KFFA radio station after he found out his name was being used and was given a radio show on there himself for a short time

47:43 - Made his first recordings in 1951 on the Trumpet label, when he was 38 years old

48:28 - First recording Sonny Boy made with Trumpet was destroyed in a fire but some of the original records were distributed and Jim has been searching for them to no avail

49:01 - Elmore James played on the first (lost) version of Eyesight To The Blind

49:48 - Other famous artists on Trumpet included Elmore James, with whom Sonny Boy recorded Dust My Broom

50:37 - The Sonny Boy Trumpet records sold quite well and the record label treated black artists fairly

51:05 - The owner of Trumpet records, Lillian McMurry, sold Sonny Boy’s contract to Chess records

51:34 - Giles likes that the Trumpet recordings and talks of how Sonny Boy was able to adapt himself to different audiences and scenarios

53:22 - Really leads the band on Trumpet records releases, whereas with Chess recordings he fits in perfectly with the accomplished city musicians

53:59 - Started recording with Checker Records (subsidiary of Chess) in 1955

54:19 - Sonny Boy was a big star from his Trumpet recordings, with hits including Nine Below Zero, Mighty Long Time and Dust My Broom

55:03 - Recorded several hits with the superstar band on the Chess Recordings, including Willie Dixon, Otis Spann, Muddy Waters

55:30 - The expansion of Black radio coincided with the success of Chess Records

56:16 - Adapted the song Good Evening Everybody, the theme tune to King Biscuit Time, on the first Chess recording session

56:49 - Don’t Start Me Talkin’ on the first Chess recording session is a very well constructed song

57:16 - Sonny Boy as a genius songwriter and he was able to read and write (not typical for people with his upbringing)

58:42 - Sonny Boy was very smart and determined to learn how to read, and the need to hide this due to the racism in society at that time

01:00:39 - Due to his success Sonny Boy had to act in ways where he would draw attention away from himself

01:00:55 - Sonny Boy’s music was heard by some white audiences, including Elvis

01:03:43 - Went over to Europe in 1963 and 1964 and had a huge influence on the British Blues boom

01:04:31 - Sonny Boy created a new style to play to the European audiences, who listened in silence like they did to highbrow music such as opera, classical and jazz music

01:06:16 - Memphis Slim really capitalised on the European blues scene and put on a classical pianist poise, while playing blues music, but Sonny Boy managed to overshadow him in the European American Folk Blues Festivals

01:07:56 - The recordings with the Yardbirds and Animals weren’t good, mainly because those bands were so young at that time

01:08:30 - The recording with the Chris Barber band was the only one of note with a British band during his stay there

01:09:19 - Despite the famous quote of: "those British boys want to play the blues real bad, and they do”, Sonny Boy still appreciated his time in England

01:09:40 - Jim backs-up the comment from Giles on how adaptable Sonny Boy was, with an ability to play in virtually any setting

01:10:43 - Sonny Boy made some recordings in the home of German photographer Stephanie Wiesand which show off his ability to play solo

01:11:59 - Wrote a lot of lyrics, but some were in collaboration with others, such as Elmore James, and who wrote them all is unclear

01:12:45 - Favourite Sonny Boy songs from the panel: Jim selects Help Me, which he played without overdubs

01:13:43 - Jim’s second choice is So Sad To Be Lonesome

01:14:45 - Neil’s favourites are You Killing Me and Don’t Lose Your Eye

01:15:17 - Giles favourites are Nine Below Zero and She’s My Baby

01:16:52 - The Sky Is Crying song on the Storyville label

01:18:32 - His characteristic style of bowler hat, case and umbrella

01:18:51 - The black blues musicians were given a level of respect in Europe that they didn’t receive in their homeland

01:19:19 - Sonny Boy was on British TV a lot in the 1960s

01:19:34 - Dressed with the bowler hat from way before visited England

01:20:12 - Well known for playing the Hohner 364 diatonic with the extra low octave and played with a harp in his mouth

01:20:32 - Giles demonstrates Bye Bye Bird and the fact that it’s a riff and not just a rhythm

01:21:11 - The extended range diatonic was Sonny Boy’s USP, and Hohner made some for him in different keys

01:21:26 - The difference in the harmonica techniques of Sonny Boy and Little Walter included Sonny Boy being rhythmical and Little Walter more melodic

01:22:14 - Giles demonstrates a riff from Don’t Start Me Talking

01:22:43 - Giles thinks Sonny Boy still sounds fresh today, whereas Little Walter has a 1950s sound

01:23:20 - How Sonny Boy influenced The Beatles to use the harmonica on their recordings via the harmonica playing of Delbert McClinton

01:25:04 - Sonny Boy played with lots of big acts in his time in England, including Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker and The Moody Blues

01:25:42 - Van Morrison’s third most performed live songs is Help Me

01:26:02 - After successful time in England he returned to the US after his visa had expired, but he also knew he was approaching the end of his life

01:27:00 - Initially went back to Chicago and then to Helena and then travelled to Alabama where he possibly took part in the civil rights movement there

01:28:08 - Returned to Helena to say his goodbyes

01:28:15 - Played his last gig at a house party in Greenwood

01:29:16 - Robbie Robertson from the band met Sonny Boy a few weeks before he died and recounts the story on a video available on YouTube and who this might have impacted Bob Dylan’s harmonica playing if Sonny Boy had joined The Band

01:31:11 - Cause of death was put down as heart attack, but that isn’t confirmed

01:31:32 - Lillian McMurry had headstone placed on his grave in 1980

01:31:40 - There was some celebration of his life after he passed away

01:32:55 - Sonny Boy is buried in Tutwiler, Mississippi, at the Whitfield Baptist Church Cemetery

01:33:22 - When Jim visited the gravestone had been knocked over and was broken and Jim had it put back in place

01:33:50 - Sonny Boy was well loved

01:34:04 - His wife Maddy stuck with Sonny Boy despite his shortcomings

01:34:26 - Was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in the first year of balloting in 1980

WEBVTT

00:00:00.034 --> 00:00:09.932
Giles Robson and Jim Bassnight join me on episode 136 for a retrospective on Alex Rice Miller, otherwise known as Sonny Boy Williamson II.

00:00:11.275 --> 00:00:13.679
Information on Sonny Boy's early life is sketchy.

00:00:14.121 --> 00:00:20.653
Sonny Boy was likely born in 1912 and had a hard upbringing, working on a plantation before becoming a travelling musician.

00:00:21.346 --> 00:00:30.981
Arriving in Helena, Arkansas, he found fame performing on the King Biscuit Time radio show before making his first recordings with trumpet records at age 38 in 1951.

00:00:32.585 --> 00:00:37.814
Sonny Boy made his classic cuts for Checker Records, a subsidiary of Chess, in 1955.

00:00:38.515 --> 00:00:46.829
He then toured Europe in 1963-64 and becoming a celebrity in England and having a huge impact on the British blues boom.

00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:49.933
returning to Helena, where he died in 1965.

00:00:51.216 --> 00:00:59.789
Sonny Boy is one of the true giants, not only of the harmonica, but also the blues, with his charismatic vocals, songwriting, and enigmatic charm.

00:01:00.109 --> 00:01:02.573
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:03.033 --> 00:01:12.328
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas.

00:01:14.171 --> 00:01:17.918
Seidel Harmonicas Bye.

00:01:23.873 --> 00:01:38.626
Hello

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Giles Robson and Jim Bassnight and welcome to the podcast.

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Hey Neil.

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Hey Neil, thank you so much.

00:01:45.212 --> 00:02:07.875
Thanks for joining both and we're here today to do a retrospective to talk about the great Sonny Boy Williamson II and whether he is the second or not we'll what his real name is we'll get on shortly but first of all we'll introduce you guys so Giles you were back on the podcast very early on in on the third episode so great to have you back my pleasure you've been very busy since that time haven't you doing lots of great stuff

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as usual I just keep pushing it you know because I love the music so much and really what keeps me pushing it is the audiences because they they really love the blues you know so it just keeps me going I've had a really great time you know really had some profound moments as well so I'm very grateful for everything that's happened to me since that podcast episode

00:02:27.895 --> 00:02:45.211
well you do an amazing job I'm forever seeing all the wonderful things you do and you do such a great job promoting not only yourself but also some other great blues musicians so yeah fantastic and you released an album with John Primer in 2024 10 Chicago Blues Classics on which there's a Sonny Boy song let me explain

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way back in my heart I want to explain to you baby just how much you treat me wrong

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Thank you.

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That's been your most recent album, is it?

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Yeah, well, I wasn't going to record that album, but actually they really wanted to do it.

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We really just wanted to record what we've been doing on stage, you know, because people had been, the critics and audience members had been commenting on the sort of telepathy between John's guitar and my harmonica playing, which is an amazing thing to have happened, this sort of musical union that we've forged since about 2022.

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So we sat down with an old school ribbon mic, so it's just a single mic recording and recorded it in in less than three hours you know it's really turned out great and has been well received across the world and i'm singing on it because john's got such a busy release schedule with loads of different projects i mean i think he's got another he's had an album grown in mississippi that came out in april he's got another album coming out in the autumn so we wanted to do something that was a bit different with me singing and then shauna light on his rhythm guitar playing which is absolutely incredible and It really gets to the heart of how blues expresses meaning and feeling.

00:04:08.311 --> 00:04:11.033
So that's been a very happy experience, you know.

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Yeah, no, fantastic stuff.

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And so when I first saw you perform, Giles, some years ago now, you performed the song One Room Cabin, which is, of course, a Sonny Boy song.

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The room was so small I couldn't even put up no cooking stove

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Thank you.

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Little

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Rooney

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as a player, Sonny Boy as a complete artist I think I'd probably listen to Sonny Boy more and also he prompted my move I now play purely acoustic on everything rather than through a mic and an amp and I think that he prompted that move because of the way that Sonny Boy's records were always popular on chess and I think one of the reasons is that the harmonica played acoustically with a band sits nicely with a full band sound I think the amplified harp can sometimes be rather overpowering and also it's quite a huge sound in comparison to the vocals and so really when we're in the lockdown i was listening a lot to him and and also a lot to his acoustic recordings in in europe which are just outstanding I made the move to playing acoustically and in a duo format as well so I could get all of those subtle dynamics and all of that rhythm and the phrasing into what I was doing and so he's been a massive influence on me and really he's an addictive listener you never get bored of his records yeah so I can't really stress how important he's been to me you know

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I'll second that as I you know I obviously listen to Sonny Boy lots I've got lots of his songs in my collection but doing the research for this episode and just listening to all Sonny Boy's songs again it's like almost every every one of them is a gem.

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They're all fantastic, aren't they?

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We'll get into that clearly, but they're all such great songs, almost every one of them.

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And also, it's not just retrospectively.

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He was highly appreciated in his time.

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I mean, I got into collecting classic jazz magazines, the music sort.

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I got a decade's worth of jazz monthly and jazz journal off eBay, you know, from the UK.

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And the critics right away, even more so than Little Walter, the critics in these magazines picked up on all of these qualities, you know, the consistency, the artistry.

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I mean, he got described by the Sunday Times magazine, which was like a cultural linchpin in 60s Britain.

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They described his performance as perfect artistry.

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And this was a magazine that would be doing articles on Picasso and Henry Moore and Miro.

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So he was right up there in the critical consensus as a major league artist.

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And he dominated the American Folk Blues Festival with pretty heavy competition.

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Can I add something to that?

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You guys making a great point about Sonny Boyz in England and Europe, how he was received.

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In the United States, he wasn't talked about at all.

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There was not one single preview, record review feature done by any American journal of note in his lifetime.

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The only thing that ever happened to him was Jet Magazine, which was an African-American focused magazine, and Ebony Magazine had little teeny mentions about the American Folk Blues Festival saying that these guys are making it big over in Europe, and it's more about the political factor of why no one cares about him here.

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And then in Cashbox and Billboard and places like that, they'd have like, yeah, this is another good song that'll make you money on your jukebox.

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Nothing about him as an artist, his lyrics, his songs, his live performances.

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And the only person in American Journal of any sort was a mimeographed magazine put up by a guy named Dr.

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Demento.

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I don't know if you guys have ever heard of him, but he was a radio fixture for many years in the United States playing kind of oddball weird novelty records and old records and stuff.

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And he did a feature on his discography during his lifetime.

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This was in like 62 of his discography in this little mimeograph magazine that he did when he was in college in Portland, Oregon.

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And that was just like a little mimeograph thing.

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It wasn't the New York Times or anything like that.

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So nobody in the entire United States followed him in any way or covered anything about him in his lifetime.

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And also another thing I wanted to add too, you mentioned great harmonica players, I have a question for Giles.

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I want to put a shout out for Walter Horton, Big Walter, and what do you think about his style?

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Well, I think he's amazing as well, you know.

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I remember him boasting in an interview that he taught Sonny Boy.

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Yeah.

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He taught Sonny Boy his style.

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I don't know whether that's true or not, but I find that I just think with Sonny Boy, there is as much technique as Walter Horton, but there's a lot more artistry in terms of use of space for praising everything, you know, and that's why his records are so Moorish.

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So I think that Horton's incredible.

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MUSIC PLAYS horton as a standalone harmonica player yeah is is probably better and as an instrumentalist but sunny boy the way he slots the harp into the singing it's like a complete package with the vocals and the personality i think is a is is just more listenable you know

00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:38.567
i'll second that exactly when i was picking out my clips which i always do before the episodes i just couldn't separate the vocals sunny boy they're so linked together and he sort of moves you know the harmonica just that really reflects you know kind of mirrors his voice and so you Yeah the whole package.

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Sing it to that other

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one

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Take a goodbye note and bring it to that other world Going

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back to this, thank you very much for including me.

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I'm just excited to be here and talk about Sonny Boy.

00:11:38.096 --> 00:11:39.238
No, it's great to have you on.

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And it's okay, we'll let you on the Happy Hour Harmonica podcast, even though you don't play harmonica, Jim, because I'm sure you're going to have lots to add.

00:11:45.923 --> 00:11:47.585
So thanks for joining.

00:11:47.826 --> 00:11:53.330
So you've been working on a biography of Sonny Boy for, I believe, over 10 years now, yeah?

00:11:53.551 --> 00:11:55.152
Yes, I have, and it's been kind of a long time.

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Long story why it's taken so long, but I won't tell that.

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I will say one thing that Giles touched on too, is that Sonny Boy was a complete...

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artist, not just a harmonica player.

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And that's why I think I'm valid to this conversation because I'm an artist and I'm a journalist and a writer.

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I talk about Sonny Boy in the book, not just as a harmonica player.

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It would be better if I was a harmonica player because I'd understand more about his playing.

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But I talk about him as an artist and also as an innovator and also as a trailblazer of African-American culture, as well as, you know, a trailblazer of American music.

00:12:33.057 --> 00:12:34.139
Yeah, fantastic.

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What about your book then?

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Is it coming out soon?

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Can people look forward to reading it?

00:12:38.585 --> 00:12:40.787
It'd be great to get a hold of that, yeah.

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Basically, I'm working with a very good literary agent that's very well respected, and I can't really talk about it much more than that, but I'm in a good position to be able to get the kind of publishing deal that I need to get, because it's a very unique kind of a book.

00:12:58.148 --> 00:12:59.229
It's not just like a little...

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50,000, 70,000 word type of a music book.

00:13:03.263 --> 00:13:16.524
It's a 500 page manuscript alone, as well as photos, as well as a very detailed chronology, as well as a very detailed discography, and an index, etc.

00:13:16.965 --> 00:13:44.172
So basically, it's a very big reference book that really represents Sonny Boy, but the giant that he is when it comes to those specific things fields of study, be it African American history, American music history, and rock and roll history, and of course the specialized area of blues music history, it covers a lot of important information for people that study those fields, a lot of new information.

00:13:44.672 --> 00:13:52.298
So it goes into a lot of detail on these various chapters in his life which coincide with very important points in history.

00:13:52.678 --> 00:13:53.360
Sounds great.

00:13:53.379 --> 00:13:56.842
So can you give us an idea about when it might be out, next year, this year?

00:13:57.504 --> 00:14:03.649
I think it's really Let's say that it will hopefully be out this year, but I think it could very well be out by next year.

00:14:04.030 --> 00:14:05.172
It's like anything else.

00:14:05.972 --> 00:14:11.298
When you put this much invested in something, it just matters that the right deal comes along.

00:14:11.318 --> 00:14:12.681
It's not so much could I put it out?

00:14:12.760 --> 00:14:14.322
I could put it out right now if I wanted to.

00:14:14.341 --> 00:14:16.625
I need to have the right people involved with it.

00:14:17.004 --> 00:14:19.587
And so that's what's taking a little bit more time.

00:14:19.607 --> 00:14:24.293
But compared to the amount of work I put into it, the amount of time that that's going to be is not long.

00:14:24.673 --> 00:14:35.143
yeah no well fantastic we'll look forward to seeing that so i believe before i don't know before or at the same time you were also looking at making a you know a film documentary on sunny boy as well yeah

00:14:35.442 --> 00:14:55.740
and i'm glad you brought that up i have all the means to do that and i'm looking after i get finished with publishing the book i will start that project but my intention is to find someone who's already done a number of films to partner with i don't want to have to learn how to do a film along with although i directed uh over 100 filmed interviews in HD.

00:14:56.221 --> 00:14:59.164
I don't want to have to be the one to do the film.

00:14:59.684 --> 00:15:08.355
I co-wrote a little screenplay that I wouldn't be able to really use, you know, but I could rewrite another one for potentially a dramatic adaptation of the story.

00:15:08.975 --> 00:15:11.337
But I would like to partner with a filmmaker.

00:15:11.437 --> 00:15:14.020
So that's what I'll be looking for, somebody to partner with to do that.

00:15:14.461 --> 00:15:18.225
So there has been a book released about Sonny Boy by William E.

00:15:18.304 --> 00:15:18.846
Donahue.

00:15:18.966 --> 00:15:19.206
Yes.

00:15:19.365 --> 00:15:21.307
Professor Mojo's Don't Start Me Talking.

00:15:21.349 --> 00:15:24.172
So unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a hold of the book before this.

00:15:24.211 --> 00:15:33.061
So I I've read little extracts available on the internet but I think that was a reasonably short book wasn't it and you know he did a good job but yeah I think hopefully yours is going to be more in depth.

00:15:33.260 --> 00:15:57.527
Yeah Bill Donahue and I are very close friends unfortunately he passed away in early 2017 and that's one reason why this has taken so long because we were partners in doing this research and then after that was over there was a little bit of a disagreement about how to proceed with it with his estate so basically I had to kind of start over with that but Bill and I were very close friends and I'm very close friends with his ex-wife today, Susan.

00:15:57.547 --> 00:16:03.272
And basically, that book was more or less just sort of a little kind of an amusement book.

00:16:03.692 --> 00:16:09.177
It really wasn't anywhere near a real reference book on Sonny Boy, and I think he would be one to admit that.

00:16:09.397 --> 00:16:15.241
It was sort of a toe tester to see if he could just kind of get out there something and then attract more people.

00:16:15.442 --> 00:16:18.404
What he really wanted to do was to do a documentary film.

00:16:18.664 --> 00:16:50.908
Bill published a number of successful books on finance and had a career as a speaker on on television on financial news shows and things like that he was more of a finance guy and he had an interest in the blues but he didn't know a lot about music so that's kind of where he brought me in and and so we were a good team there to get some of these things going but his health was very poor unfortunately and that's what kind of led to me doing probably most of the work on the first draft that we did a draft of a book and uh it was almost done and then he passed away

00:16:51.489 --> 00:17:19.578
so it certainly sounds like you've done your research so let's go on to some anybody now so there's a gravestone uh which is put together by the person who who i think was involved with trumpet records which we shall talk about shortly so the gravestone let's talk about first about what year he was born and what year he died so what year he died is certain it was in uh it was in 1965 that he died but the year he was born is a bit more strategy on the gravestone it says 1908 but i think that isn't isn't certain by any means right

00:17:19.798 --> 00:17:24.964
this is where i'm going to be the one to talk to about this because i've done a lot of research on this.

00:17:25.045 --> 00:17:28.732
Jim O'Neill also has done quite a bit, as has Dr.

00:17:28.792 --> 00:17:30.958
David Evans from the University of Memphis.

00:17:31.117 --> 00:17:34.224
But in fact, both of them helped me with a lot of this stuff.

00:17:34.305 --> 00:17:39.615
So I'll give you the best I can as far as factually how old he was and what his age was.

00:17:39.655 --> 00:17:43.986
It's a little bit of a tidbit that will be in the book, but it'll be more fleshed out in the book.

00:17:44.226 --> 00:17:55.115
just on that point I mean obviously it's great that the book's coming out obviously we can only cover so much here so we all look forward to jumping into the real detail when your book comes out and I appreciate that you know we're just skimming the surface here right

00:17:55.375 --> 00:18:27.310
I'm going to do the best I can to give you a quick analysis of how old he was according to family and accounts from people that were very close to family he was the youngest of 21 children some of them were children that were born from a previous relationship that his mother had with a man named Ford and some of them may have been possibly children of the children, because they were church people, decided to present to the public as being her child, children of the young girls that were, you know, teenage era.

00:18:27.951 --> 00:18:30.736
So, that's a possibility that has been claimed.

00:18:31.498 --> 00:18:34.101
The long and short of it is that he was the youngest.

00:18:34.594 --> 00:18:39.219
The next youngest of the children was a man named Boyakin Miller.

00:18:39.638 --> 00:18:42.041
And Boyakin lived to be quite older.

00:18:42.542 --> 00:18:53.914
His stories were well documented about his life with Sonny Boy in family get-togethers, never anything by any journalist or anything, any interview or any transcript.

00:18:54.655 --> 00:18:57.798
Family get-to reunions, he talked all about his experiences.

00:18:58.339 --> 00:19:03.846
And he actually was the one who named Sonny Boy Rice because Sonny Boy liked rice when he was an infant.

00:19:04.097 --> 00:19:14.849
He was the youngest, and his age was such that it was documented in the census, and he was a few years older than Sonny Boy.

00:19:14.869 --> 00:19:17.498
I think three years, two and a half, three years older than Sonny Boy.

00:19:18.119 --> 00:19:18.681
And he was...

00:19:19.266 --> 00:19:19.906
X age.

00:19:20.126 --> 00:19:24.631
We don't know the date because all we know specifically is that he was a couple years older than Sonny Boy.

00:19:24.651 --> 00:19:33.999
The census says that he was three years older than Sonny Boy and Sonny Boy was seven in 1920 census.

00:19:34.519 --> 00:19:38.883
Now Sonny was not alive in the 1910 census of the Miller family.

00:19:39.303 --> 00:19:40.104
Boykin was.

00:19:40.384 --> 00:19:42.026
Boykin was an infant at that time.

00:19:42.125 --> 00:19:48.230
So Sonny Boy was probably born in about 1912 or 13, probably late 12.

00:19:48.270 --> 00:19:50.492
A lot of people think it's early 13 yeah

00:19:51.413 --> 00:19:54.778
so that would mean that he lived to be 53 years old

00:19:55.298 --> 00:20:04.387
if he's born in 1912 he died in 65 it was late 12 at absolutely would have been late 12 so he would have been 52 yeah

00:20:04.528 --> 00:20:05.730
yeah so pretty young yeah

00:20:06.009 --> 00:20:10.734
and his real name is Alex A-L-E-X got it not not Alec

00:20:11.214 --> 00:20:22.647
not Alec with a C-K yeah so his name is Alex Rice Miller Rice being his sort of nickname yeah yeah and he was born in Glendora Mississippi Which is just south

00:20:22.907 --> 00:20:30.316
of Clocksdale, is that right?

00:20:49.135 --> 00:20:53.200
12 of the 21 children in his family didn't make it to the age of 18.

00:20:54.060 --> 00:20:55.403
Nobody had a birth certificate.

00:20:55.782 --> 00:21:07.635
The marriage certificates that they had were very often not really legal because they would get married and then they'd meet somebody else and they'd get married again without a divorce decree.

00:21:08.876 --> 00:21:12.101
Basically, there was no paperwork supporting any of this stuff for these folks.

00:21:12.740 --> 00:21:30.028
So, we can honestly say he probably was born in Glendora, but the word that I've heard from all the family is that they moved to what's now called Money, Mississippi, which is a very, very small town north of Greenwood in the Greenwood area when he was about one years old.

00:21:30.189 --> 00:21:38.964
And he was there on the Pleasant View Plantation from age one until age 17 when his father made him leave.

00:21:39.746 --> 00:21:40.205
Yeah.

00:21:40.666 --> 00:21:41.907
So, I mean, that's important, right?

00:21:41.928 --> 00:21:44.769
So he grew up on a plantation in a farming community.

00:21:44.829 --> 00:21:46.172
That was his young life, yeah.

00:21:46.451 --> 00:21:46.612
Yeah.

00:21:46.751 --> 00:21:54.858
In a cotton plantation where you had to work from what they called cane to cante, which is when the sun comes up till when the sun goes down.

00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:57.080
And you basically made no money.

00:21:57.121 --> 00:22:05.888
And at the end of the year, they'd give you a bonus for Christmas based on just however they were feeling about you, whether they wanted to keep you around or not.

00:22:05.929 --> 00:22:09.711
And like I said, 12 out of 18 kids didn't make it to the age of 18.

00:22:09.711 --> 00:22:13.734
so the conditions they lived in were severe to say the least

00:22:14.336 --> 00:22:25.045
and you mentioned there that he you know he was kind of secretive about his life or at least he told different stories about his life and that's kind of reflected in some of his lyrics like keep it to yourself for example

00:22:25.945 --> 00:22:45.369
don't tell your mother don't tell your father don't tell your sister don't mention it to your brother please darling keep all the business to yourself music Don't you tell nobody and don't mention to nobody.

00:22:45.430 --> 00:22:49.772
He certainly had that mystique about himself and what he sang about.

00:22:49.792 --> 00:22:50.994
I think it's really

00:22:51.055 --> 00:23:08.009
interesting when you look at his birth date because if he was born in 1913, that would make him two years older than Memphis Slim, who was born in 1915, although there is a draft card that would suggest that Slim was actually born in 1910.

00:23:08.028 --> 00:23:47.471
And then I think Muddy originally it was 1916 but now they think it's 1913 i think but i mean that that in itself is interesting because when you see him at the in the american folk blues festival shows i mean he looks at least a decade older but both in his posture the the way his i mean he's got very old man wrists you know he's sort of got rheumatism or arthritis in in the wrists and and that that in itself is fascinating and and i know there's been a lot of conjecture about about he looked so old because he'd lived such a rough and a rough life and a you know dependent on alcohol and so on

00:23:47.770 --> 00:23:59.222
not to mention the late nights and and the and the traveling and probably lack of good nutrition and probably just lack of sleep a whole variety of things his lifestyle was was pretty rough

00:23:59.923 --> 00:24:26.662
we've also got to remember as well i mean i don't think he had any concepts of time or dates because he would introduce songs in the american folk blues festival i was listening to fattening frogs for snakes a solo performance that he said he first recorded in 1947 which obviously he didn't because he didn't start recording until the 50s but I don't think he had any concepts of time or the only consistent thing was his music you know throughout his whole life that was his sort of island

00:24:27.143 --> 00:24:37.981
he was a habitual liar and I think he did so for a very important reason and I want to expand on that He was the age that I said he was based on first hand from family

00:24:38.001 --> 00:24:38.882
including

00:24:38.923 --> 00:24:42.164
people that really knew his sisters and people like that.

00:24:42.645 --> 00:24:54.776
So basically it all adds up that he was born in late 1912 or early 1913 and he was basically around 52 years old when he passed away and I think that the way he looked was because of drinking.

00:24:55.317 --> 00:25:03.104
So we obviously talked about him, you said he left the plantation at age 17 and then he sort of took up the life as a wandering musician is what I've read Jim.

00:25:03.124 --> 00:25:10.751
So what do we know about that time when he started playing do we know what got him started playing the harmonica and singing and you know what was he doing in those early days when he started playing

00:25:11.071 --> 00:26:34.340
what you need to know is it isn't like the wandering musician today or in the 1970s when my dad told me that i had to leave the house when i was 18 he was an outlaw because what happened in mississippi and in the deep south in general at that time was that being a blues man was essentially an outlaw per thing to do there was laws in the in the law books in the arkansas law books and it's in my book there was a law that said pipers and fiddlers Giles will like this they didn't even have the dignity to call them harmonica players and guitar players but pipers and fiddlers were not allowed to make a living if there was work that the authorities needed to do and the joke about that is I talked to a number of people in the south is that all the authorities were white and all the white people were authorities so what basically happened was if he was found to be working as a harmonica a player at that age traveling and living on his own and not attached to some sort of farm or some sort of servo position with a company owned by a white man or very unlikely but possibly a white woman he would be subject to legal problems they would legally put you if they wanted to and it probably would want most of those kind of young men they would put them in what's called county farms just for being alone they called it vagrancy they'd get them for jaywalking they'd get them for for all kinds of things.

00:26:34.601 --> 00:26:35.942
They'd ask you, how much money do you got?

00:26:35.982 --> 00:26:37.223
Well, I got 50 bucks.

00:26:37.263 --> 00:26:39.026
Well, in this county, you have to have 60.

00:26:39.365 --> 00:26:57.546
They put you in hard labor, in chains, in the hot sun, and you would die within six months to a year when those conditions, and until you got a family member or somebody to get a white person to come hire you, and then you'd be indebted to that white person, and that's the facts.

00:26:57.605 --> 00:26:59.827
And maybe this is unpleasant stuff for your show.

00:26:59.847 --> 00:27:01.849
I don't know if you want to get into this kind of discussion, but...

00:27:03.471 --> 00:27:05.315
This is the roots of the blues, right?

00:27:05.355 --> 00:27:06.676
This is the real blues, yeah?

00:27:06.997 --> 00:27:07.837
This is what happened.

00:27:07.998 --> 00:27:12.044
And so basically, he lived the life of an outlaw from 17 on.

00:27:12.084 --> 00:27:15.189
That's why his father was so mad at him that kicked him out of the house.

00:27:15.409 --> 00:27:16.289
Of course, they all loved him.

00:27:16.309 --> 00:27:18.913
He was the baby of the family, and he was really talented.

00:27:18.993 --> 00:27:23.119
But they wanted him to be in the church and be a preacher or something like that with that talent.

00:27:23.400 --> 00:27:25.703
And he just said, no, I'm a blues player.

00:27:25.763 --> 00:27:27.066
So he went out and did it.

00:27:27.809 --> 00:27:31.594
He sort of wandered around, went up to Memphis and then to Arkansas.

00:27:31.634 --> 00:27:35.618
And on the way, he's sort of known to have met various people.

00:27:35.679 --> 00:27:38.201
Like, for example, he certainly knew Howlin' Wolf, right?

00:27:38.281 --> 00:27:39.482
And he married his sister.

00:27:39.502 --> 00:27:39.542
¶¶

00:27:39.563 --> 00:27:47.571
¶¶

00:27:57.314 --> 00:27:58.557
Oh, man.

00:27:59.041 --> 00:28:01.084
Well, we found other marriages that he had.

00:28:01.223 --> 00:28:01.463
Dr.

00:28:01.523 --> 00:28:03.605
David Evans found a marriage that he had in 1932.

00:28:04.866 --> 00:28:08.349
And also, there was another marriage that potentially could have happened.

00:28:08.410 --> 00:28:09.810
He had a child, too.

00:28:09.871 --> 00:28:11.972
He did a lot of things in that time.

00:28:12.032 --> 00:28:19.098
And it's all very well detailed in my book, to the best that can be detailed, based on interviews and firsthand accounting of family members.

00:28:19.179 --> 00:28:26.625
But the long and short of it is what he did was he left the house in this little shack in this plantation.

00:28:26.925 --> 00:28:28.627
And he just went from town to town.

00:28:29.008 --> 00:28:42.211
Using a different name everywhere he went, he became known as Rice, but he also went other places and used other names, but mostly was centered around the Greenwood area and pretty well known as Rice from 1930 until 1938.

00:28:42.652 --> 00:28:54.563
And in that time frame, he played around and posed basically as a farmhand for or as long as he could, you know, around places, and he'd play and he'd work.

00:28:54.603 --> 00:28:59.208
And once they figured out he wasn't one of the farmhands, he would go somewhere else and run away.

00:28:59.648 --> 00:29:09.280
And he'd usually be dependent on somebody there to kind of put him up, usually maybe possibly a female, possibly a male friend, to give him a place to stay while he was working in the area.

00:29:09.520 --> 00:29:15.769
And he'd go from town to town in that area in those different delta towns around within reasonable distance of Greenwood.

00:29:16.513 --> 00:29:19.557
And then in 1938, he ran into some trouble.

00:29:19.616 --> 00:29:25.642
He was so talented that he became popular with some of the white people, and he was just well-known.

00:29:26.001 --> 00:29:33.067
And so he started getting some favoritism over some of the other musicians who possibly could be treated the way I described earlier.

00:29:33.087 --> 00:29:40.335
And basically, he got in with some folks that would have him come and play on gambling boats and things like that.

00:29:40.375 --> 00:29:44.678
Honey Boy Edwards was another guy that was in that category, and of course, Robert Johnson.

00:29:45.078 --> 00:29:49.885
And these guys would travel, and of course, Robert Lockwood Jr., he became involved with him and started traveling with him.

00:29:50.594 --> 00:30:08.009
pretty early on so the key thing is he would travel with these folks uh these other guys they're all guys and they would play on street corners in towns and then at night they'd play at juke joints and things like that and sometimes they'd play for some white people that would get paid more money but it was somewhat more dangerous to do that

00:30:08.769 --> 00:30:36.061
so you mentioned robert lockwood there and so he met with robert lockwood and then he which led to him playing on famously on the king biscuit time radio show that's correct in arkansas yeah so so this was kind of his well well sort of his big break in a way because he became known then and he was advertising on this radio show i think playing what 15 minutes a day advertising flour and cornmeal so this was kind of his big break yeah

00:30:41.026 --> 00:30:47.912
What

00:30:47.971 --> 00:30:55.999
happened here is that in 1938, this is shortly after Robert Johnson died, and we don't know if it was related to Robert Johnson's death or had anything to do with it.

00:30:56.538 --> 00:30:59.741
He had a squabble with some quote-unquote bad white men.

00:30:59.781 --> 00:31:42.786
Apparently, late night after the event, a musical event, they did something to him, and he claimed to his family they tried to kill him, so he took out a knife and defended himself against them and stabbed one of them in order to get away now in that area that would not be considered self-defense that would be something where they would they would if they would have he would have told the sheriff they would have created a search party and gone after him and it would have been a big big event to search high and low until they found him and then they would have probably lynched him they probably wouldn't even have put him on trial but the bottom line is is that these bad white men were obviously bad enough to where they They didn't go to the police.

00:31:43.066 --> 00:31:47.030
They went only to look for him in places that they knew about him.

00:31:47.050 --> 00:31:53.718
His sister, who was most friendly with him, and the two daughters that were there at the time were threatened to be killed.

00:31:53.758 --> 00:32:04.829
And everyone was so scared that they never repeated this story until about 2015 is when I finally got the full story from one of the daughters who was 86 at the time.

00:32:05.269 --> 00:32:10.895
They were so afraid because these bad white men were also people in the community that have descendants now.

00:32:10.895 --> 00:32:12.837
and did all these years.

00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:19.545
What basically happened is that he ran away from the Greenwood area and he never used the name Rice again.

00:32:19.585 --> 00:32:22.307
When Eric Clapton asked him, aren't you Rice Miller?

00:32:22.327 --> 00:32:28.515
He pulled out a pen knife or put out a little pocket knife and scared Eric Clapton and said, you ever say that again?

00:32:28.595 --> 00:32:32.980
And Giorgio Gamelski had to kind of get between him and try to brush things up.

00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:39.467
He just never let anybody promote the idea that his name was Rice Miller because he had actually run away from being Rice Miller.

00:32:39.846 --> 00:33:18.627
Very much like Jean Valjean and Les Miserables actually if you want to get dramatic about it so basically he just ran away from that identity and he went from town to town again but much further afield first he went up to southern Illinois to get away from this whole thing for a while to see what was going and then when he felt the heat was off he moved back and centered himself in Helena which had a large black community that he could kind of blend into like a lot of musicians did and so at that point he became centered in Helena and eventually after traveling around with Robert Lockwood, becoming more famous in a lot of ways, and well-known as this great harmonica player, as this great entertainer.

00:33:18.667 --> 00:33:40.751
He was able to make a deal with these people who had this brand new radio station, and they needed to sell, advertise, they needed to sell, have content, and The Signal broadcast to an area that was about 70% African-American, and so he convinced them that just, they would be able to sell this flower if he put the blues on the radio, and the community was very much against it.

00:33:40.751 --> 00:34:14.163
community leaders and such but the bottom line is the guy who he convinced convinced them that this would only be temporary because World War II was going on and this will be just temporary because we need to do this because of the war and when the war's over we're going to move it back to all white and they bought it and of course by that time four years later he had already gotten a bunch of other radio stations to go with this format with other sponsors and by 1948 the first all black radio station was established in Memphis in no small part because of all the groundwork that he laid.

00:34:15.842 --> 00:34:23.449
so i

00:34:27.672 --> 00:34:33.257
think this king biscuit time radio show ran for 10 years but he wasn't on it for that long was he didn't do we know how long he was

00:34:33.516 --> 00:34:50.833
he was on it for a couple of years lockwood left first and they gave him his own show with mother's best flower and he did more of a kind of a big big band style blues kind of like what bb keen became famous doing and then basically Basically, Sonny Boy continued with other guitar players, more notably Joe Willie Wilkins.

00:34:51.353 --> 00:34:53.615
And, of course, Pinetop Perkins also played with him on this.

00:34:53.896 --> 00:34:55.038
Pinetop joined the band, yeah.

00:34:55.177 --> 00:35:01.244
Pinetop replaced Robert Dudlow-Taylor, who played on a lot of stuff, too, and was a great piano player, yeah.

00:35:01.704 --> 00:35:07.811
So, obviously, you mentioned earlier on, Giles, correctly, that Sonny Boy played acoustic harmonica, and that's inspired you to take up more acoustic harmonica.

00:35:08.092 --> 00:35:20.005
But I think he's noted for having played electric harmonica on the King Biscuit time show, so he's possibly one of the first if not the first electric harmonica played on this show is this right?

00:35:20.525 --> 00:36:51.264
Well yeah there are a couple very early publicity shot of Sonny Boy in a bowler hat funnily enough that he went on to wear a bowler hat in the UK but a 30s publicity shot of Sonny Boy with an amp and a mic on a mic stand and there's also a shot of him at a political rally again playing through a mic and also the video footage of him with the King Biscuit entertainers being driven across to various gigs across the Mississippi again he's got a mic so yeah he's probably one of the first people to use it but the only evidence that we have of his what he sounded like through a mic is on chess records tracks like 99 born blind which is obviously better known as eyesight to the blind cross your heart and so on to my mind they're not great sounding records I think he sounded better acoustically and I think that he played through a Shure Slim X mic which is one of the worst sounding harmonica microphones you'd ever want to play I've got one here I got one actually just as I managed to pick one up in perfect condition just as a sort of a souvenir because Sonny Boy played through one and Walter Horton and James Cotton but it's one of the worst sound and the difference I think between Sonny Boy and Little Walter is that Little Walter really you know he really created an art of playing through the amplifier it's like he's not only playing the harp he's playing the amplifier as well.

00:37:04.322 --> 00:37:07.123
Whereas Sonny Boy, it was mainly just for amplification in clubs.

00:37:07.164 --> 00:37:15.731
He said in a very early, in an interview with Blues Unlimited in the UK, that he basically used it for amplification in clubs, you know.

00:37:16.331 --> 00:37:22.697
So I think all of those guys, Snooki Pryor, Sonny Boy, obviously needed amplification to be heard.

00:37:23.297 --> 00:37:29.364
But I think really the most artistically successful amplified blues harmonica player was Little Walter.

00:37:29.864 --> 00:37:30.164
He did.

00:37:30.485 --> 00:37:31.985
Little Walter really led that.

00:37:32.326 --> 00:37:40.534
But what I'll say about Alex Miller and Sonny boy, was that basically what he did, he had a microphone and he did it earlier than Walter, obviously.

00:37:40.554 --> 00:37:41.996
That picture is in 1939.

00:37:42.036 --> 00:37:50.605
That's from Harrisburg, Illinois, where he had a radio show, believe it or not, for a very short time and did a few of other things, a harmonica contest.

00:37:50.644 --> 00:37:53.588
That's when he ran away from the knife fight that I told you about.

00:37:53.929 --> 00:37:57.532
So he kind of made his home there for about one year.

00:37:58.092 --> 00:38:22.940
So at any rate, what I think about that is that he did do a lot less than Walter did as far as perfecting the use of harmonica with a microphone, but his playing was so fantastic that when somebody figured out how to record him like they did at Storyville, that's the best anybody ever did of recording him as far as knowing how to dial in his organic sound.

00:38:23.340 --> 00:38:24.161
It was incredible.

00:38:34.192 --> 00:38:46.344
Had

00:38:46.405 --> 00:38:55.134
he lived to work with more great engineers that knew a little bit more about miking and such, he probably would have made a lot better amplified harmonica.

00:38:55.594 --> 00:39:34.458
But it's very interesting because I think the success of Sonny Boy and the success of his records are the fact that he very quickly moved away from amplified yeah and it suits his conspiratorial vocals you know the yeah the the deeply nuanced vocals the acoustic harmonica is a much more intimate beast and even with the the big chicago blue you know with the two guitars the piano the bass and the drums behind him he still created an intimate relationship with the listener by playing acoustic harp and the way that that melds in with his his vocals you know which which are less a more conspiratorial and conversational than say much Muddy

00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:38.166
Wolves.

00:39:44.193 --> 00:39:47.956
Get on to the show, but we know he was first recorded in 1951.

00:39:48.137 --> 00:39:54.983
Are there any recordings from the King Biscuit Time radio show, or is there anything from that period of his playing?

00:39:55.403 --> 00:39:59.027
There may be, but I don't know of any, nor does Jim O'Neill, nor does anybody else.

00:39:59.706 --> 00:40:10.976
The only recording that anybody's ever heard was the one that was done right before his death by Chris Strockwitz that was released on some of those various records he did when he reissued the trumpet record stuff

00:40:11.338 --> 00:40:14.159
on his label.

00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:18.827
Darling, please keep our business to yourself

00:40:27.809 --> 00:40:29.811
What's very interesting, he did a...

00:40:30.152 --> 00:40:34.876
which appears to be a complete lie and sort of shows up his sort of habitual lying.

00:40:35.496 --> 00:40:43.963
There's a bootleg recording of him at the 1963 American Folk Blues Festival when he recorded in the Jazz House in Weisbaden in Germany.

00:40:44.364 --> 00:40:44.824
Great

00:40:45.085 --> 00:40:45.264
tape.

00:40:45.284 --> 00:40:49.628
Yeah, and he says, here's a song of mine called I Don't Care No More.

00:40:49.648 --> 00:40:52.952
I recorded it in 1927 or something on the Bullet label.

00:40:53.311 --> 00:40:57.735
And then he says, you might know the version by Jimmy McCracklin, but it's actually my version...

00:40:57.775 --> 00:41:03.081
did it first and there's no evidence no evidence to support the fact that it's a

00:41:03.461 --> 00:41:05.684
jimmy mccracklin song sorry sonny boy

00:41:06.025 --> 00:41:35.195
yeah so so so on that topic let's now talk about the the sonny boy name so as i think most most on monica players know there's sonny boy one and sonny boy two and uh clearly john lee williamson is known as sonny boy one and sonny boy uh two we're talking about here probably he probably did take john lee williamson's sonny boy name i think because johnny williamson was quite famous that time in chicago so my impression was that he because he was a long way away from there he just sort of used his name to help his own fame is that what you uh you understand giles

00:41:35.416 --> 00:42:34.199
yeah i mean i've read a lot about i've heard a lot about i think what we've got to understand is that this was he was where he was moving in a world of complete chaos you know when you look back a lot of the time people don't know the difference between say jazz and blues and they see classic black and white photographs of of say count basie or duke ellington dressed up in a suit and then they see a classic photo of Sonny Boy dressed up in a suit and you know they don't realise the different milliers that these artists worked in you know Sonny Boy was working you know with these very small record labels a lot of them were not properly run you know a lot of them were crooks and so Jim will probably come in with more accurate information but I wouldn't be surprised that it was given to him by the DJ or whether he used it down in the south knowing that Sonny Boy John Lee Williamson was up in Chicago and might not ever find him I mean He was living in these sort of little crooked radio stations and record labels.

00:42:34.219 --> 00:42:42.228
So I imagine it was maybe a bit of him, maybe a bit of the DJ's idea, but Jim will probably come in with more accurate information.

00:42:42.588 --> 00:42:50.436
Let me just start by saying I hope people understand that what I said about the knife fight and him changing his identity was a major, major thing.

00:42:50.936 --> 00:44:00.295
A number of much less famous musicians that could have been more famous were killed in the Delta because of things like that that happened to him with that knife fight one good example is Hound Dog Taylor claims that the Klan was after him and he escaped to Chicago so this was a traumatic thing in his life and at that point he really lied about everything for a reason not just because he liked to lie and it probably helped him to lie in some situations but the bottom line is he really was vague about who he was for a reason so I don't think he was necessarily that as bad of a person as some people say but getting back to the story about john lee williamson john lee williamson and he by legend had met when they were 12 and 14 years old by the age that i believe sunny boy is and they had played in harmonica little contest when they were very very young so they went way back according to some people i don't know if that's factual but they knew who they each other were and john lee of course had already had a recording career by 1941 for, I believe, four years.

00:44:00.838 --> 00:44:05.070
So his name had been on jukeboxes, which is where most people heard records.

00:44:05.572 --> 00:44:07.637
Very few people owned records or record players.

00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:11.804
And so He was the blues harmonica, the player that people knew.

00:44:11.844 --> 00:44:13.826
There was no internet.

00:44:13.885 --> 00:44:15.427
There was no television.

00:44:15.907 --> 00:44:23.353
And so what happened was he started using the name Sonny Boy Williamson because that was some way for him to market himself.

00:44:23.414 --> 00:44:25.556
And he'd play Sonny Boy Williamson songs.

00:44:26.297 --> 00:44:29.579
And if that was to his advantage to make money, he was a hustler.

00:44:29.659 --> 00:44:34.724
He would go from town to town living in the shadows, basically illegally, marginally legally.

00:44:34.764 --> 00:44:37.005
And he'd do whatever he could to make a buck.

00:44:37.126 --> 00:44:38.286
And Giles know what that's about.

00:44:38.327 --> 00:44:38.927
He's a musician.

00:44:38.927 --> 00:44:40.389
I just wanted

00:44:40.590 --> 00:44:42.592
to point out, jazz never breaks the law, Jim.

00:44:42.612 --> 00:44:42.672
Put

00:44:44.134 --> 00:44:54.985
it this way, if he's a musician and he came up as a professional musician, at one point he worked in bars or on street corners or something like that, and he knew to adapt to his surroundings to make the better money.

00:44:55.045 --> 00:44:57.047
This was commonplace.

00:44:57.067 --> 00:45:00.351
There's a great audio interview with Memphis Slim on YouTube.

00:45:00.650 --> 00:45:08.398
He talks about actually meeting a guy that used his name and the house rocker's name and having a good laugh with him years later.

00:45:08.440 --> 00:45:08.880
Yeah.

00:45:08.880 --> 00:45:14.246
And this interview is interesting as well with Memphis Slim because he seconds a story that someone was using Little Walter's name.

00:45:14.626 --> 00:45:14.806
That's

00:45:14.826 --> 00:45:15.007
right.

00:45:15.027 --> 00:45:18.911
And Memphis Slim alludes to the fact that Walter did some pretty bad things to this guy.

00:45:19.451 --> 00:45:22.675
Obviously, in Cadillac Records, Walter shot the impersonator.

00:45:23.094 --> 00:45:24.516
So that actually happened.

00:45:24.536 --> 00:45:27.980
Memphis Slim alludes to it in this interview in about 1976, I think.

00:45:28.601 --> 00:45:30.603
And that may be where that thing in the movie comes from.

00:45:30.643 --> 00:45:34.867
But I will say that Mary and Little Walter's daughter was not too happy about that.

00:45:35.327 --> 00:45:40.773
But nonetheless, what happened was that he used Sonny Boy Williamson, he also used a lot of other names.

00:45:40.833 --> 00:45:42.856
He used Harmonica Blow and Slim.

00:45:42.896 --> 00:45:44.217
He used Little Boy Blue.

00:45:44.237 --> 00:45:45.639
He used WM.

00:45:46.300 --> 00:45:47.721
He used all kinds of names.

00:45:48.101 --> 00:46:06.802
When it came to King Biscuit, what happened was he was in Helena and he talked to the guy and it's unclear whether it was the guy who ran the flower company that sponsored the show or him that suggested using Sunny Boy Williamson, but it was suggested to use Sunny Boy Williamson for the name because it was a name that people knew.

00:46:06.822 --> 00:46:17.152
And at that time, there hadn't been a civil judgment by a black person against a white person in Arkansas in like 80 years, I think, or whatever it was, and since Reconstruction.

00:46:17.592 --> 00:46:20.115
So what was John Lee Williamson going to do?

00:46:20.235 --> 00:46:20.456
Sue?

00:46:20.936 --> 00:46:21.117
No.

00:46:21.697 --> 00:46:27.844
After he found out, after this show was such a big success, he found out about it, and he came down to Helena and said, well, are you using my name?

00:46:27.864 --> 00:46:29.226
And everybody, are you doing that for her?

00:46:29.246 --> 00:46:35.472
And he goes, no, we're calling, he's Sonny Boy Williams, not Sonny Boy Williamson.

00:46:36.152 --> 00:46:38.615
And if you want a show, we'll give you a show.

00:46:38.735 --> 00:46:44.161
So he went down, he's from Chicago, and he did a Sonny Boy Williamson show.

00:46:44.202 --> 00:46:48.226
They gave him a 15-minute show, and he got a sponsor, and he did it for a while.

00:46:48.907 --> 00:46:58.617
And according to Robert Lockwood, he wasn't as good as Miller, and it didn't last long, and he had other things he wanted to do, and he just said, heck, what am I going to do?

00:46:59.097 --> 00:47:00.458
I'm glad the guy's making money.

00:47:00.820 --> 00:47:01.340
What the heck?

00:47:01.460 --> 00:47:14.824
And actually, he rationalized it further by saying, this guy's helping me sell records because he doesn't have any records out, and he didn't put another Eden Brecken until three years after John Lee was murdered or how he passed away in 48.

00:47:24.418 --> 00:47:25.018
Hey, everybody.

00:47:25.039 --> 00:47:38.730
You're listening to Neil Warren's Harmonica Happy Hour Podcast, sponsored by Tom Halcheck and Blue Moon Harmonicas out of Clearwater, Florida, the best in custom harmonicas, custom harmonica parts, and more.

00:47:39.251 --> 00:47:43.233
Check them out, www.bluemoonharmonicas.com.

00:47:43.293 --> 00:47:47.557
His first recordings were in 1951 on the trumpet label.

00:47:48.478 --> 00:47:53.282
And this is with Lillian McMurray of Jackson, Mississippi, who recorded him.

00:47:53.322 --> 00:47:54.384
So what happened there?

00:47:54.384 --> 00:47:58.775
and getting finally recorded what age was he here then Jim in 51 do we think

00:47:59.425 --> 00:48:00.447
He was 38 years old.

00:48:00.746 --> 00:48:06.992
So reasonably, you know, mature in years, considering the life he'd had playing harmonic for a long time.

00:48:07.012 --> 00:48:08.574
It took him quite a while to get recorded, yeah?

00:48:08.673 --> 00:48:13.338
If you look at the pictures that Lillian had taken for him, though, he's believably 38.

00:48:13.458 --> 00:48:17.121
He's a believably 38-year-old guy that drinks a lot and parties a lot, yeah.

00:48:17.501 --> 00:48:23.907
It's a little bit more of a believable story about his age when you see the pictures from 1951 than when you see the pictures from 1965.

00:48:24.887 --> 00:48:28.530
But anyway, he started with her.

00:48:28.550 --> 00:48:29.391
They did a recording.

00:48:29.391 --> 00:49:09.775
recording of eyesight to the blind and unfortunately the master was burned in a fire in in the pressing plant and so it was lost but they before they what that happened they made a run of those records and they sent most of them out to radio stations uh and they sold the rest of them they didn't even go through any distributors to some they just sold the rest of them right in the record mart which was her furniture store that they had a record section the record mart was called their record section and they sold them right there in jackson on ferris street so we've been searching high and low to try to find one of those, and nobody has, to my knowledge, has found one of those first versions of Eyesight to the Blind, which Elmore James plays guitar on.

00:49:09.815 --> 00:49:16.722
Now, the next version that they re-recorded it, because of that unfortunate situation, there was no guitar player.

00:49:16.742 --> 00:49:16.762
I

00:49:19.726 --> 00:49:25.952
remember one Friday morning, we were lying down across the bed.

00:49:25.972 --> 00:49:29.195
Man in the next room was dying, stopped down and held up his head and said, Lord, ain't she pretty?

00:49:29.215 --> 00:49:45.021
And All right, all right.

00:49:48.545 --> 00:49:51.327
Trumpet Records was a pretty cool label.

00:49:51.809 --> 00:49:52.650
They did a lot of stuff.

00:49:52.690 --> 00:49:53.570
They did a lot of good stuff.

00:49:53.630 --> 00:49:56.833
Willie Love was an artist that's really worthy of mention.

00:49:56.952 --> 00:49:59.175
It's lesser known for fans out there.

00:49:59.255 --> 00:50:01.617
He wasn't a harmonica player, but he was a great blues man.

00:50:01.637 --> 00:50:13.266
He played piano with a lot of Miller's radio shows, and he actually had a radio show that Miller helped him get in Greenville that was sort of a spinoff of Sonny Boy's success.

00:50:13.827 --> 00:50:26.909
One of the other big artists on trumpet was probably the most famous one was Elmore James his version of Dust My Broom.

00:50:36.865 --> 00:50:38.487
How did these records sell with Trumpet?

00:50:38.827 --> 00:50:43.110
The Trumpet Records was a pretty successful indie label at the time.

00:50:43.130 --> 00:50:47.474
The label owner was fair to the black artists.

00:50:48.096 --> 00:50:56.262
She treated them the same as the white artists and paid them the same and was more generous to them than the chess guys.

00:50:56.302 --> 00:50:59.465
And they were afraid that that would be a threat long term.

00:50:59.826 --> 00:51:04.829
Some people would contest that she was perfect in her way she dealt with people, but I think it's probably true.

00:51:05.110 --> 00:51:34.041
Sonny Boy had a tremendous affinity for her it seemed like liked her a lot more than he liked the chess brothers but she sold his contract to them because there was a distributor who was really the big game in town at that time and really without his distribution company what we know as rock and roll and r&b and blues might not have happened the way it did there was a guy that had a distribution company that rose from a jukebox company that he established as a very young age his name was buster williams

00:51:34.786 --> 00:51:50.500
I think what's very interesting about the trumpet recordings, which are magnificent, by the way, and if you're a Sonny Boy fan and haven't heard them, you need to go out and get the King Biscuits or just stream the King Biscuit time compilation recordings on our Hooli records.

00:51:50.920 --> 00:51:57.826
But what's very interesting and what is fascinating about Sonny Boy's career is his adaptability to different audiences and scenarios.

00:51:58.226 --> 00:52:13.793
His harmonica playing is noticeably different on the trumpet recordings than it is on chess, than it is on the american folk blues festival tours and the the playing is on trumpet it is almost geared towards a more southern audience

00:52:28.257 --> 00:52:30.159
It's

00:52:30.179 --> 00:52:39.710
got a lot more vibrato, a lot more hand wah-wahs, and his vocals as well are a lot more boisterous and you can hear a lot of the church in them.

00:52:40.150 --> 00:52:54.126
And then suddenly he makes the switch to chess and you have the first session with Don't Start Me Talking and All My Love in Vain and You're Killing Me, all those tracks.

00:52:54.146 --> 00:52:54.365
MUSIC PLAYS

00:53:04.577 --> 00:53:06.639
And it suddenly becomes big city cool.

00:53:07.000 --> 00:53:07.601
You're suddenly...

00:53:08.141 --> 00:53:09.282
It's very constrained.

00:53:10.163 --> 00:53:11.603
It's a different beast altogether.

00:53:11.724 --> 00:53:21.632

Sonny Boy Williamson II retrospective with Giles Robson and Jim Basnight

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