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Artist
Sonny Boy Williamson II
12+ albums
bluesharmonica bluesChicago BluesClassic Bluesblues harp
about
Aleck "Rice" Miller (December 5, 1899 – May 25, 1965), also known as Sonny Boy Williamson II, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. He is not to be confused with the original Sonny Boy Williamson, also a blues musician but of no relation. Although John Lee Williamson was a major blues star who had already released dozens of successful and widely influential records under the name Sonny Boy Williamson from 1937 onward, Aleck Miller would later claim to have been the first to use the name, and some blues scholars believe that Miller's assertion he was born in 1899 was a ruse to convince audiences he was old enough to have used the name before John Lee Williamson, who was born in 1914. Whatever the methodology, Miller became known as Sonny Boy Williamson. Williamson had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of Elmore James's band. In the 1960's he toured Europe during the height of the British blues craze, recording with The Yardbirds and The Animals. Accoring to the Led Zeppelin biography "Hammer of the Gods", while in England Sonny Boy set his hotel room on fire while trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator. Some of his hit songs include "Fattenin' Frogs for Snakes", "Don't Start Me To Talking" ,"Keep It To Yourself", "Your Funeral & My Trial", "Bye Bye Bird", "Nine Below Zero", "Help Me", and the infamous "Little Village", with dialogue deemed 'unsuitable for airpla
