Sonny Boy Williamson II

Sonny Boy Williamson embodied the quintessential blues icon across multiple eras. At his passing in 1965 he had already shared stages with Robert Johnson during the early phase of his path and with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Robbie Robertson toward its close. Across the intervening decades he consumed ample quantities of whiskey, wandered the nation as a hobo, sustained a popular radio program across fifteen years, received widespread praise on European tours, and created, performed, and recorded some of the finest blues ever committed to Black phonograph discs. His vocal approach came across as cunning, malevolent, and fatigued by experience, whereas his harmonica work alternated between concise rhythmic phrases and forceful, emotionally charged passages. The compositions brimmed with caustic humor and predominantly autobiographical verses that withstand examination when read on the page. Although he adopted the moniker of a prior celebrated harmonica artist, his sound remained distinctly his own.

A temperament marked by gloom, resentment, and distrust led Sonny Boy Williamson II to spin an especially tangled network of falsehoods. Even basic details such as his birth date—listed as December 5, 1899, in most reference volumes, though certain accounts place it in 1897 or 1909—and his given name, rendered variously as Aleck or Alex or Willie “Rice” Miller or Ford, resist definitive confirmation. Nothing reliable survives about his early years in Mississippi. Documentation does establish that by the mid-1930s he traveled the Delta under the alias Little Boy Blue, joining forces interchangeably with Robert Johnson, Robert Nighthawk, Robert Lockwood, Jr., and Elmore James at juke joints, fish fries, country suppers, and ball games of the period.

By the early 1940s he had become the featured performer on KFFA’s King Biscuit Time, the first live blues broadcast on American radio. The Interstate Grocery Company, seeking to sell additional sacks of King Biscuit Flour, orchestrated one of the more notable deceptions in blues annals by presenting Miller as Chicago harmonica star John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. In an era before universal video exposure, the substitution succeeded despite the genuine Sonny Boy’s national fame and Miller’s unrelated vocal and instrumental style. Because the original artist avoided southern tours, the arrangement flourished, and following John Lee’s murder in Chicago, Miller declared himself “the original Sonny Boy.” Fellow musicians continued to call him Rice Miller, yet to the broader public he fully assumed the identity of Sonny Boy Williamson.

The program’s popularity prompted the Interstate Grocery Company to launch Sonny Boy Corn Meal featuring his likeness on the packaging. Despite regional prominence, Williamson showed little interest in recording; claims he made later in life about 1930s sessions lack supporting evidence. Lillian McMurray, proprietor of Trumpet Records in Jackson, Mississippi, located him at a boarding house in nearby Belzoni and persuaded him to cut sides for her label. The tracks he produced for Trumpet between 1951 and 1954 display him at the height of his powers, with vocal, instrumental, and songwriting abilities refined to their sharpest form. His debut Trumpet single, “Eyesight to the Blind,” achieved immediate success, and although subsequent Chess productions rendered the Trumpet recordings comparatively sparse in sound, they remain exemplary documents of juke joint blues at its peak.

A further landmark in blues history took shape when Sonny Boy escorted King Biscuit Time guest Elmore James into the studio for an impromptu session. With Williamson on harp, a drummer marking time, and the tape rolling without prior arrangement, Elmore captured the earliest rendition of his signature piece, Robert Johnson’s “Dust My Broom.” By then Sonny Boy had ended his first marriage—to a woman who was also Howlin’ Wolf’s sister—and wed Mattie Gordon, whose enduring partnership proved the most steadfast relationship of his life beyond music; Mattie tolerated his constant travels and the resulting instability. On two occasions he relocated to Detroit, briefly joining the Baby Boy Warren band and delivering remarkable solos on Warren’s Blue Lake and Excello sides in 1954.

Early in 1955, after McMurray leased a single to Johnny Vincent’s Ace label, she transferred Williamson’s contract to Buster Williams in Memphis, who then sold it to Leonard Chess in Chicago. All elements converged when Sonny Boy became an official Chess recording artist and established permanent residence above the Mason-Dixon line. His initial Chess session occurred on August 12, 1955, yielding the single “Don’t Start Me to Talkin’,” which quickly gained traction on the R&B charts. At his second session he rejoined longtime collaborator Robert Lockwood, Jr., one of the original King Biscuit Boys and later the de facto house guitarist at Chess, who also recorded for other Chicago labels. Lockwood’s blend of Robert Johnson rhythms and jazz chord embellishments revitalized Williamson’s harp and weathered vocals, and his contributions proved indispensable to the success of the Chess catalog.

Even as a national recording artist, Williamson frequently vanished for months. When Chicago engagements dwindled he would return to Arkansas to host the King Biscuit program temporarily. In 1963 he traveled to Europe for the first time with the American Folk Blues Festival. Amid the folk music surge, European promoters imported blues performers at every career stage to perform before enthusiastic white crowds encountering them live for the first time. Williamson deployed his full repertoire of stagecraft and captivated audiences nightly. He remained in Britain after the tour concluded, embracing the continent wholeheartedly.

He soon performed on the teenage beat club circuit, working and recording with the Yardbirds and Eric Burdon’s band, whom he consistently called “de Mammimals.” On folk-blues package tours he maintained a composed and understated demeanor, yet in beat clubs, backed by young white bands playing at high volume, he revived every juke joint device he had employed with the King Biscuit Boys and electrified the youthful listeners. “Help Me” emerged as an unexpected hit throughout Britain and Europe. In his mid-sixties—or possibly older—Williamson expressed genuine gratitude for the recognition and considered a permanent move overseas. Before returning to the United States for final Chess sessions, he commissioned a two-tone harlequin city gentleman’s suit complete with bowler hat, rolled umbrella, and attaché case stocked with harmonicas. His 1964 return to England positioned him as a triumphant figure; one of his last recordings, featuring Jimmy Page on guitar, bore the title “I’m Trying to Make London My Home.”

During 1965 Williamson journeyed back to Mississippi for a final stint hosting the King Biscuit show. Still clad in his custom attire, he entertained locals with accounts of his European travels. Some listeners were impressed, while others long acquainted with him suspected he might as easily have substituted “Mars” for “Europe,” given their familiarity with his penchant for exaggeration. After three decades of roaming the United States and performing for receptive European audiences, he possessed ample cause to revisit the Delta: he had returned home to die. He recruited old associates Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis to escort him to the remote locations of his youth, sometimes visiting former acquaintances and at other times simply passing afternoons fishing along riverbanks.

When the Hawks—formerly Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band—performed nearby, they deliberately sought Williamson and accompanied him through an entire evening in a juke joint. Throughout the night he repeatedly spat into a coffee can at his side. During a break, Robbie Robertson observed that the can contained blood. On May 24, 1965, Curtis and Stackhouse waited at the KFFA studios for the daily King Biscuit broadcast. When Williamson failed to appear, Curtis proceeded to the rooming house where he lodged and discovered him dead in bed from an apparent heart attack. He was interred at Whitfield Cemetery in Tutwiler, Mississippi, and his funeral drew a large crowd. As Houston Stackhouse observed, “He was well thought of through that country.” Williamson received election to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980.