Good Gal Blues - Sonny Boy Williamson I

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 at Champaign were built, the Leland Hotel was for many years the tallest building in Illinois, outside Chicago. The top-floor nightclub at the Leland, known as "The Sky Room", was used for live big band broadcasts on a local radio station, was utilized during off hours as a recording studio for Williamson's early sessions, as well as those of other Bluebird artists.

Williamson's final recording session took place in Chicago in December 1947, backing Big Joe Williams. On June 1, 1948, John Lee Williamson was killed in a robbery on Chicago's South Side, as he walked home from a performance at The Plantation Club at 31st St. and Giles Ave., a tavern just a block and a half away from his home at 3226 S. Giles. Williamson's final words are reported to have been "Lord have mercy".

His legacy has been somewhat overshadowed in the post-war blues era by the popularity of the musician who appropriated his name, Rice Miller, who after Williamson's death went on to record many popular blues songs for Chicago's Checker Records label and others, and toured Europe several times during the 'blues revival' in the early 1960s.
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