Bman's Blues Report

Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Curtis Williamson, March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player and singer, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson. Williamson was born near Jackson, Tennessee in 1914. His original recordings were considered to be in the country blues style, but he soon demonstrated skill at making harmonica a lead instrument for the blues, and popularized it for the first time in a more urban blues setting. He has been called "the father of modern blues harp". While in his teens he joined Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes playing with them in Tennessee and Arkansas, and in 1934 settled in Chicago Sonny first recorded for Bluebird Records in 1937 and his first recording, "Good Morning, School Girl", became a standard. He was hugely popular among black audiences throughout the southern United States as well as in the midwestern industrial cities such as Detroit and his home base in Chicago, and his name was synonym...

Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Curtis Williamson, March 30, 1914 – June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player and singer, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson. Williamson was born near Jackson, Tennessee in 1914. His original recordings were considered to be in the country blues style, but he soon demonstrated skill at making harmonica a lead instrument for the blues, and popularized it for the first time in a more urban blues setting. He has been called "the father of modern blues harp". While in his teens he joined Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes playing with them in Tennessee and Arkansas, and in 1934 settled in Chicago Williamson recorded prolifically both as a bandleader and a sideman over the entire course of his career, mainly for the Bluebird record label. Before Bluebird moved to Chicago, where it eventually became part of RCA Records, many early sessions took place at the Leland Hotel in Aurora, Illinois. Before the university's towers...

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967) was an American blues musician, who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. The band here is Mc Coy on guitar, Sonny Boy Williamson on Harmonica and Speckled Red on Piano. Born in Helena, Arkansas, he left home at an early age to become a busking musician, and after a period wandering through southern Mississippi, settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learnt to play slide guitar, and with whom he appeared on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi. After further travels through Mississippi, he found it advisable to take his mother's name, and as Robert Lee McCoy moved to St. Louis, Missouri in the mid 1930s Like my Facebook Page, Post your video on my Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! Share your favorite posting an...

Sonny Boy Williamson (John Lee Curtis Williamson, March 30, 1914 — June 1, 1948) was an American blues harmonica player, and the first to use the name Sonny Boy Williamson. This is Sonny Boy I as opposed to Alex Rice Miller known as Sonny Boy II. I love these old interviews