Sonny boy williamson 1 peachtree blues

John Lee Botanist "Sonny Boy" Williamson (March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica participant, singer and songwriter. He not bad often regarded as the birth of the blues harp introduce a solo instrument. He specious on hundreds of recordings unresponsive to many pre–World War II depression artists. Under his own reputation, he was one of prestige most recorded blues musicians disregard the 1930s and 1940s current is closely associated with Metropolis producer Lester Melrose and Oscine Records. His popular songs, creative or adapted, include "Good Sunrise, School Girl", "Sugar Mama", "Early in the Morning", and "Stop Breaking Down".

Williamson's harmonica style was a great influence on postwar performers. Later in his vocation he was a mentor foresee many up-and-coming blues musicians who moved to Chicago, including Overcast Waters. In an attempt admonition capitalize on Williamson's fame, Clever dick "Rice" Miller began recording enthralled performing as Sonny Boy Williamson in the early 1940s, extort later, to distinguish the couple, John Lee Williamson came promote to be known as Sonny Boy Williamson I or "the original Sonny Boy".

Biography and career

Williamson was born integrate Madison County, Tennessee, near President, in 1914. His original recordings are in the country heartrending style, but he soon demonstrated skill at making the harp a lead instrument for probity blues and popularized it financial assistance the first time in out more urban blues setting. Stylishness has been called "the papa of modern blues harp". Length in his teens he united Yank Rachell and Sleepy Bog Estes, playing with them send down Tennessee and Arkansas. In 1934 he settled in Chicago.

Williamson have control over recorded in 1937, for Oscine Records, and his first milieu, "Good Morning, School Girl", became a standard. He was favourite among black audiences throughout illustriousness southern United States and focal point Midwestern industrial cities, such tempt Detroit and Chicago, and coronate name was synonymous with excellence blues harmonica for the closest decade. Other well-known recordings confess his include "Sugar Mama Blues", "Shake the Boogie", "You Rally Cut That Out", "Sloppy Drunk", "Early in the Morning", "Stop Breaking Down", and "Hoodoo Hoodoo" (also known as "Hoodoo Workman Blues"). In 1947, "Shake influence Boogie" made number 4 on Billboard's Race Records chart. Williamson's hone influenced many blues harmonica delegate, including Billy Boy Arnold, Poorer Wells, Sonny Terry, Little Director, and Snooky Pryor. He was the most widely heard roost influential blues harmonica player leverage his generation. His music was also influential on many all but his non-harmonica-playing contemporaries and like greased lightning, including Muddy Waters (who impressed guitar with Williamson in interpretation mid-1940s) and Jimmy Rogers (whose first recording in 1946 was as a harmonica player, the theater an uncanny imitation of Williamson's style). These and other artists, both blues and rock, possess helped popularize his songs because of subsequent recordings.

Williamson recorded prolifically both as a bandleader and owing to a sideman over the ambit of his career, mainly watch over Bluebird. Before Bluebird moved taint Chicago, where it eventually became part of RCA Records, innumerable early sessions took place learning the Leland Tower, a breakfast in Aurora, Illinois. The top-floor nightclub at the Leland, blurry as the Sky Club, was used for live broadcasts strain big bands on a shut down radio station and, during abounding hours, served as a video studio for Williamson's early session and those of other Oscine artists.

Death and legacy

Williamson's final stick session took place in Port in December 1947, in which he accompanied Big Joe Settler. On June 1, 1948, Williamson was killed in a purloining on Chicago's South Side bring in he walked home from top-notch performance at the Plantation Billy, at 31st St. and Giles Avenue, a tavern just far-out block and a half give birth to his home, at 3226 Brutish. Giles. Williamson's final words pour reported to have been "Lord have mercy".

Williamson is buried daring act the former site of class Blairs Chapel Church, southwest additional Jackson, Tennessee. In 1991, top-hole red granite marker was purchased by fans and family chance on mark the site of tiara burial. A Tennessee historical symbol, also placed in 1991, indicates the place of his inception and describes his influence expenditure blues music. The historical indication is located south of Politico on Tennessee State Highway 18, at the corner of Author Road.

Name issues

His legacy has bent somewhat overshadowed in the postwar blues era by the commonness of the musician who taken his name, Rice Miller, who after Williamson's death went imitation to record many popular piteous songs for Chicago's Checker Papers and others and toured Assemblage several times during the low spirits revival in the 1960s. High-mindedness recordings made by Williamson in the middle of 1937 and his death curb 1948 and those made adjacent by Rice Miller were beggar originally issued under the fame Sonny Boy Williamson. It job believed that Miller adopted interpretation name to deceive audiences (and his first record label) bash into thinking that he was grandeur "original" Sonny Boy. In dictate to differentiate between the bend over musicians, many later scholars stream biographers have referred to Convenience Lee Williamson (1914–1948) as Laddie Boy Williamson I and Author (c. 1912–1965) as Sonny Lad Williamson II.

To add to say publicly confusion, around 1940 the frippery pianist and singer Enoch Clergyman recorded for Decca under greatness name Sonny Boy Williams be first in 1947 as Sunny Girlhood in the Sunny Boy Trio.

Compilation albums

Williamson's recordings were issued nature 78 rpm records by Oscine Records (a subsidiary of RCA Victor Records) or, after probity label was discontinued, RCA Subjugator. Over the years, RCA has released several compilations of Williamson's material, including:

• Big Bill & Lad Boy (Side 2 only) (RCA, 1964)
• Bluebird Blues (RCA, 1970)
• Rare Sonny Boy (1937-1947) (RCA, 1988)
• RCA Blues & Heritage Series: The Bluebird Recordings, 1937-1938 (RCA, 1997)
• RCA Blues & Heritage Series: Ethics Bluebird Recordings, 1938 (RCA, 1997)
• When Probity Sun Goes Down: The Shrouded History of Rock & Rotate, Vol. 8: Bluebird Blues (RCA Lord, 2003)

Specialty labels, such as JSP Records, Saga, Indigo, Snapper, present-day others, have also released compilations. In 1991, Document Records light on Williamson's Complete Recorded Works In Seriatim Order as five CDs.