Sonny Boy Williamson II

There are various opinions about his year of birth, five of which are 1897, 1899, 1908, 1909, and 1912.

In a spoken word performance called “The Story of Sonny Boy Williamson” that was later included in several compilations, Miller states that he was born in Glendora, Mississippi in 1897.

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.

While in Clarksdale, Williamson stayed at the Riverside Hotel.

A 13-year-old Ike Turner backed Williamson on piano during local gigs.

Miller's gravestone at Tutwiler, Mississippi, set up by record company owner Lillian McMurry twelve years after his death, gives his date of birth as March 11, 1908.

Alex or Aleck Miller (originally Ford, possibly December 5, 1912 – May 24, 1965), known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.

According to researchers Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc, he was born in the small community of Money, near Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1912.

According to David Evans, professor of music and an ethnomusicologist at the University of Memphis, census records indicate that Miller was born in about 1912, being seven years old on February 2, 1920, the day of the census.

He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s.

Beginning in the 1930s, he traveled around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered Big Joe Williams, Elmore James and Robert Lockwood Jr.., also known as Robert Junior Lockwood, who would play guitar on his later Checker Records sides.

He was also associated with Robert Johnson during this period.

Miller developed his style and raffish stage persona during these years.

Willie Dixon recalled seeing Lockwood and Miller playing for tips in Greenville, Mississippi, in the 1930s.

He entertained audiences with novelties such as inserting one end of the harmonica into his mouth and playing with no hands.

At this time he was often known as "Rice" Miller—a childhood nickname stemming from his love of rice and milk —or as "Little Boy Blue".

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, Miller would later claim to have been the first to use the name.

In 1941 Miller was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour on radio station KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, with Lockwood.

The program's sponsor, Max Moore, began billing Miller as Sonny Boy Williamson, apparently in an attempt to capitalize on the fame of the well-known Chicago-based harmonica player and singer Sonny Boy Williamson (birth name John Lee Curtis Williamson, died 1948).

(Later, for Checker Records, he did a parody of Howlin' Wolf, entitled "Like Wolf".) He started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950, selling the elixir Hadacol.

He brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis -- Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Robert Nighthawk, and others -- to perform on KWEM radio.

Williamson married Howlin' Wolf's half-sister Mae and he showed Wolf how to play harmonica.

In 1949, Williamson relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas, and lived with Howlin' Wolf.

He was an early and influential blues harp stylist who recorded successfully in the 1950s and 1960s.

Miller used various names, including Rice Miller and Little Boy Blue, before calling himself Sonny Boy Williamson, which was also the name of a popular Chicago blues singer and harmonica player.

To distinguish the two, Miller has been referred to as Sonny Boy Williamson II.

He first recorded with Elmore James on "Dust My Broom".

Some of his popular songs include "Don't Start Me Talkin'", "Help Me", "Checkin' Up on My Baby", and "Bring It On Home".

He toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival and recorded with English rock musicians, including the Yardbirds and Animals.

"Help Me" became a blues standard, and many blues and rock artists have recorded his songs.

Miller's date and place of birth are disputed.

Williamson's first recording session took place in 1951 for Lillian McMurry of Trumpet Records, based in Jackson, Mississippi.

It was three years since the death of John Lee Williamson, which for the first time allowed some legitimacy to Miller's carefully worded claim to being "the one and only Sonny Boy Williamson".

He had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of Elmore James's band.

When Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Williamson's recording contract was yielded to its creditors, who sold it to Chess Records in Chicago.

During his Chess years he enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim, recording about 70 songs for the Chess subsidiary Checker Records from 1955 to 1964.

His first LP record was a compilation of previously released singles.

A single, "Boppin' with Sonny" backed with "No Nights by Myself", was released by Ace Records in 1955.

Titled Down and Out Blues, Checker released the collection in 1959.

In 1972, Chess released This Is My Story, a compilation album featuring Williamson's recordings for the label.