Sonny Boy Williamson - The Chess Years (4 CD)

Aleck Ford/Little Boy Blue/Rice Miller/Sonny Boy II lived and worked with his sharecropper family until the early 1930s. Then he travelled around Mississippi and Arkansas and encountered several itinerant musicians (Big Joe, Robert Johnson, Robert Lockwood). In 1941 he had a more or less permanent home in Helena, Arkansas. He played on the King Biscuit Time radio show, advertising King Biscuit Flour. It was at this point that the radio 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 Williamson).

In 1949, Williamson relocated to West Memphis, Arkansas and lived with his sister and her husband, Howlin' Wolf. He started his own KWEM radio show from 1948 to 1950 selling the elixir Hadacol. He brought his former King Biscuit musician friends and others to West Memphis to perform on KWEM Radio. Williamson's first recording session took place in 1951 for Lillian McMurry of Jackson, Mississippi's Trumpet Records. Sonny Boy already had begun developing a following in Chicago beginning in 1953, when he appeared there as a member of Elmore James's band. And when Trumpet went bankrupt in 1955, Sonny Boy moved to Chicago. From 1955 to 1964 he recorded about 70 songs for Chess subsidiary Checker Records.

In the early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze and he recorded with The Yardbirds and The Animals. He appeared on several TV broadcasts throughout Europe. Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed in the Helena, Arkansas area. As fellow musicians Houston Stackhouse and Peck Curtis waited at the KFFA studios for Williamson on May 25, 1965, the 12:15 broadcast time was closing in and Sonny Boy was nowhere in sight. Peck left the radio station to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he had been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before.

Album: The Chess Years
Year: 1991
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 66:40+63:29+64:59+64:49
Size: 155,3+148,0+151,3+150,5 MB
Styles: Harmonica blues
Scans: Full

CD 1:
1. Work With Me (2:53)
2. Don't Start Me Talkin' (2:36)
3. All My Love In Vain (2:50)
4. Good Evening Everybody (2:35)
5. You Killing Me (On My Feet) (3:24)
6. Let Me Explain (2:55)
7. I Know What Love Is All About (2:40)
8. I Wonder Why (1:32)
9. Your Imagination (3:01)
10. Don't Lose Your Eye (3:03)
11. Keep It To Yourself (2:50)
12. Please Forgive (2:51)
13. The Key (To Your Door) (3:16)
14. Have You Ever Been In Love (2:54)
15. Hurts Me So Much (2:38)
16. Fattening Frogs For Snakes (2:22)
17. I Don't Know (2:26)
18. Like Wolf (2:50)
19. This Is My Apartment (2:38)
20. Cross My Heart (3:23)
21. Born Blind (2:33)
22. Ninety Nine (2:39)
23. Dissatisfied (2:43)
24. Unseen Eye (2:57)

CD 2:
1. Your Funeral And My Trial (2:30)
2. She Got Next To Me (2:34)
3. Wake Up Baby (2:57)
4. Keep Your Hand Out Of My Pocket (2:49)
5. Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide (2:19)
6. Unseeing Eye (3:08)
7. The Goat (2:45)
8. Cool Disposition (2:43)
9. I Never Do Wrong (2:55)
10. It's Sad To Be Alone (2:55)
11. Open Road (2:54)
12. Santa Claus (2:44)
13. I Can't Do Without You (2:48)
14. Checkin' Up On My Baby (1:57)
15. Temperature 110 (2:17)
16. Peach Tree (2:32)
17. Lonesome Cabin (3:04)
18. Somebody Help Me (2:20)
19. Down Child (2:33)
20. Trust Me Baby (2:44)
21. This Old Life (2:36)
22. Too Close Together (2:13)
23. Too Young To Die (2:54)
24. She's My Baby (2:08)

CD 3:
1. Stop Right Now (2:26)
2. The Hunt (2:46)
3. Too Old To Think (2:50)
4. That's All I Want (2:16)
5. One Way Out (2:01)
6. Nine Below Zero (3:29)
7. Got To Move (2:27)
8. Bye Bye Bird (2:37)
9. Help Me (3:10)
10. Bring It On Home (2:35)
11. One Way Out (2:27)
12. My Younger Days (3:20)
13. Tryin' To Get Back On My Feet (2:06)
14. Decoration Day (3:25)
15. Stop Cryin' (2:32)
16. I Want You Close To Me (2:59)
17. One Way Out (2:45)
18. I Can't Be Alone (3:17)
19. Don't Make A Mistake (3:32)
20. Understand My Life (2:25)
21. Find Another Woman (4:34)
22. My Name Is Sonny Boy (4:48)

CD 4:
1. The Key (To Your Door) (2:36)
2. Hurts Me So Much (Take 3) (2:50)
3. Cool Disposition (Take 1) (2:51)
4. Dissatsified (Take 3) (2:59)
5. Cross My Heart (Take 3) (2:57)
6. Ninety Nine (4:08)
7. She Got Next To Me (2:32)
8. Fattening Frogs For Snakes (2:59)
9. Nine Below Zero (4:17)
10. Your Funeral And My Trial (Take 5) (2:17)
11. Cool Disposition (Take 3) (3:13)
12. The Goat (Take 1) (2:44)
13. Ninety Nine (Take 1) (3:01)
14. Cross My Heart (Take 2) (2:21)
15. Hurts Me So Much (Take 4) (2:43)
16. Nine Below Zero (Take 3) (3:32)
17. Your Funeral And My Trial (Take 2) (2:07)
18. Checkin' Up On My Baby (2:35)
19. Little Village (12:01)

The Chess Years (4 CD) Part 1 mc
The Chess Years (4 CD) Part 1 zippy

The Chess Years (4 CD) Part 2 mc
The Chess Years (4 CD) Part 2 zippy

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