- Byname of:
- John Lee Williamson
Sonny Boy Williamson
Sonny Boy Williamson (born March 30, 1914, Jackson, Tennessee, U.S.—died June 1, 1948, Chicago, Illinois) was an American blues vocalist and the first influential harmonica virtuoso, a self-taught player who developed several technical innovations on his instrument.
Williamson traveled through Tennessee and Arkansas with mandolinist Yank Rachell and guitarist Sleepy John Estes, working in bars, on the streets, and at parties from the late 1920s until he settled in Chicago in 1934. Williamson began recording in 1937, using small bands composed of a guitar, string bass, and sometimes a piano. Characteristically, he alternated vocal phrases with harmonica phrases, built melodic solo choruses, and preferred fast “jump” tempos. Every aspect of his style, including his slight speech impediment, has been imitated.
Working in Chicago blues clubs, Williamson prefigured the post-World War II electric blues; he performed with Muddy Waters, an adherent of electronic amplification, in 1943. At the height of his popularity, Williamson was robbed and murdered while walking home from a blues bar.
Another blues singer and harmonica player, Alex, or Aleck, Miller, who was called Rice Miller, took Sonny Boy Williamson’s name, insisting that he had invented it. He performed, toured, and recorded under it from 1941, when he began playing on the popular King Biscuit Time radio broadcasts in Helena, Arkansas, until his death in 1965. He also recorded for Chess Records and toured Europe, often with rock bands, and the second Sonny Boy Williamson arguably became better known than the first. Miller is sometimes referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II.
Both musicians were inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980. In 2017 the U.S. Library of Congress added the 1965 album King Biscuit Time (which features Sonny Boy Williamson II and other artists) to the National Recording Registry, a list of audio recordings deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”