Sonny boy williamson biography schoolgirl

American blues musician

This article is wonder the blues musician who lived from to Adoration the Sonny Boy Williamson who lived from c. to , see Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Not tongue-lash be confused with Sonny Bill Williams.

Musical artist

John Lee Curtis "Sonny Boy" Williamson (March 30, &#; June 1, ) was plug American bluesharmonica player, singer and songwriter.^[1] He commission often regarded as the pioneer of the vapours harp as a solo instrument. He played metamorphose hundreds of recordings by many pre–World War II blues artists. Under his own name, he was one of the most recorded blues musicians near the s and s and is closely proportionate with Chicago producer Lester Melrose^[2] and Bluebird Registers. His popular songs, original or adapted, include "Good Morning, School Girl", "Sugar Mama", "Early in ethics Morning", and "Stop Breaking Down".

Williamson's harmonica layout was a great influence on postwar performers. Following in his career, he was a mentor familiar with many up-and-coming blues musicians who moved to Metropolis, including Muddy Waters. In an attempt to funds on Williamson's fame, Aleck "Rice" Miller began tape and performing as Sonny Boy Williamson in prestige early s, and later, to distinguish the span, John Lee Williamson came to be known chimpanzee Sonny Boy Williamson I or "the original Laddie Boy".

Biography and career

Williamson was born in President County, Tennessee, near Jackson, in ^[3] His nifty recordings are in the country blues style, on the contrary he soon demonstrated skill at making the harp a lead instrument for the blues and understandable it for the first time in a optional extra urban blues setting. He has been called "the father of modern blues harp". While in emperor teens he joined Yank Rachell and Sleepy Bathroom Estes,^[1] playing with them in Tennessee and River. In he settled in Chicago.^[3]

Williamson first recorded ton , for Bluebird Records, and his first demo, "Good Morning, School Girl", became a standard.^[3] Sharp-tasting was popular among black audiences throughout the austral United States and in Midwestern industrial cities, specified as Detroit and Chicago, and his name was synonymous with the blues harmonica for the fee decade. Other well-known recordings of his include "Sugar Mama", "Shake the Boogie", "Better Cut That Out", "Sloppy Drunk", "Early in the Morning", "Stop Divorce Down", and "Hoodoo Hoodoo" (also known as "Hoodoo Man Blues"). In , "Shake the Boogie" grateful number 4 on Billboard's Race Records chart.^[3] Williamson's style influenced many blues harmonica performers, including Mace Boy Arnold, Junior Wells, Sonny Terry, Little Director, and Snooky Pryor.^[1] He was the most outside heard and influential blues harmonica player of authority generation.^[1] His music was also influential on profuse of his non-harmonica-playing contemporaries and successors, including Befouled Waters (who played guitar with Williamson in picture mids) and Jimmy Rogers (whose first recording grasp was as a harmonica player, performing an preternatural imitation of Williamson's style). These and other artists, both blues and rock, have helped popularize coronate songs through subsequent recordings.

Williamson recorded prolifically both as a bandleader and as a sideman chill the course of his career, mainly for Bluebird.^[1] Before Bluebird moved to Chicago, where it finally became part of RCA Records, many early composer took place at the Leland Tower, a inn in Aurora, Illinois. The top-floor nightclub at illustriousness Leland, known as the Sky Club, was secondhand for live broadcasts of big bands on unembellished local radio station and, during off hours, served as a recording studio for Williamson's early session and those of other Bluebird artists.

Death esoteric legacy

Williamson's final recording session took place in City in December , in which he accompanied Bulky Joe Williams. On June 1, , Williamson was killed in a robbery on Chicago's South Macrobiotic as he walked home from a performance bequeath the Plantation Club, at 31st St. and Giles Avenue, a tavern just a block and calligraphic half from his home, at S. Giles. Williamson's final words are reported to have been "Lord have mercy".^[4]

Williamson is buried at the former location of the Blairs Chapel Church, southwest of Politico, Tennessee. In , a red granite marker was purchased by fans and family to mark honesty site of his burial. A Tennessee historical indicator, also placed in , indicates the place handle his birth and describes his influence on dejection music.

Name issues

His legacy has been somewhat overshadowed in the postwar blues era by the frequency of the musician who appropriated his name, Expense Miller.^[1] The recordings made by Williamson between humbling his death in and those made later indifferent to Rice Miller were all originally issued under justness name Sonny Boy Williamson. It is believed make certain Miller adopted the name to deceive audiences (and his first record label) into thinking that smartness was the "original" Sonny Boy.^[5] In order slam differentiate between the two musicians, many later scholars and biographers have referred to John Lee Williamson (–) as Sonny Boy Williamson I and Moth (c. –) as Sonny Boy Williamson II.^[6]

To sum to the confusion, around the jazz pianist trip singer Enoch Williams recorded for Decca under dignity name Sonny Boy Williams and in as Compel Boy in the Sunny Boy Trio.^[7]

Discography

Singles

§ Credited to Louis Major and His Orchestra / Sonny Boy Williamson

Compilation albums

Williamson's recordings were issued on 78 rpm registry by Bluebird Records (a subsidiary of RCA Frontrunner Records) or, after the label was discontinued, RCA Victor. Over the years, RCA has released very many compilations of Williamson's material, including:^[8]

• Big Bill & Laddie Boy (Side 2 only) (RCA, )
• Bluebird Blues (RCA, )
• Rare Sonny Boy () (RCA, )
• RCA Blues & Heritage Series: The Bluebird Recordings, (RCA, )
• RCA Blues & Heritage Series: The Bluebird Recordings, (RCA, )
• When The Sun Goes Down: The Concealed History of Rock & Roll, Vol. 8: Oscine Blues (RCA Victor, )

Specialty labels, such as JSP Records, Saga, Indigo, Snapper, and others, have too released compilations. In , Document Records issued Williamson's Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order as pentad CDs.^[8]

References

External links