Product Description

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: WILLIAMSON,SONNY BOY
Title: REAL FOLK BLUES/MORE REAL FOLK BLUES
Street Release Date: 03/12/2002
Domestic
Genre: BLUES TRADITIONAL

Track Listing

1. One Way Out
2. Too Young to Die
3. Trust My Baby
4. Checkin' Up on My Baby
5. Sad to Be Alone
6. Got to Move
7. Bring It on Home
8. Down Child
9. Peach Tree
10. Dissatisfied
11. That's All I Want
12. Too Old to Think
13. Help Me
14. Bye Bye Bird
15. Nine Below Zero
16. The Hunt
17. Stop Right Now
18. She's My Baby
19. The Goat
20. Decoration Day
21. Trying to Get Back on My Feet
22. My Younger Days
23. Close to Me
24. Somebody Help Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #91703 in Music
• Brand: WILLIAMSON,SONNY BOY
• Released on: 2002-03-12
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.com
The biography of Sonny Boy Williamson is something of an enigma, even to ardent blues fans. Indeed, he isn't even the "real" Williamson; a shrewd businessman simply gave singer-mouth harpist Aleck "Rice" Miller the name after the 1948 murder of popular blues artist John Lee Williamson. Still, Miller/Williamson's remarkable career literally bridged Robert Johnson and Eric Clapton, both his music and life embodying a free-wheeling, hard-living lifestyle that became something of a rock and blues cliché. After considerable local radio success in the Delta, Miller/Williamson ended up at Chicago's Chess Records in the mid-1950s, where all but one of these two dozen tracks originated in the early '60s. But by the time Chess originally issued the first of these ill-timed collections (belatedly compiled to cash in on a waning '60s folk boom), Williamson was six months dead. Listen and it's not hard to hear why a generation or two of blues-smitten rockers held him especially dear, be it the Allmans (the original "One Way Out," with longtime partner Robert Lockwood Jr. supplying the familiar guitar licks) or Zeppelin (a lugubrious, boogied-up take of Willie Dixon's "Bring It On Home"). Punctuated by harp blasts that could turn from sharply staccato to lyrically wrenching, Williamson's leathery voice muses over his being "Too Young to Die" or "Too Old to Think" with the self-deprecating indifference that became a trademark. Though these tracks are the cream of his last years, they're more boozy celebration than elegy. --Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

A very interesting collection of latter-day Chess sides
MCA/Chess' "The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson" remains the ultimate Rice Miller-compilation, with "His Best" in second.
But this twofer-CD, which brings together all 24 tracks from Miller's two "Real Folk Blues" albums, doesn't make a bad supplement. It does repeat eight songs from "His Best", but it also has 16 songs which can't be found on that collection. Conversely, if you have the more extensive "Essential" anthology, you'll find only eight songs here that you don't already have.

The overall standart of this material is high, with "The Real Folk Blues" being slightly stronger than its companion volume.
"Help Me", "Bring It On Home", "Nine Below Zero", "Down Child", the supremely tough "Checkin' Up On My Baby", and the punchy "One Way Out" are all among Rice Miller's best most familiar songs, and numbers like "Too Young To Die", "Decoration Day" and "My Younger Days" are equally excellent. Rice Miller was by far the best songwriter of all the Chess greats of the 50s and early 60s, an awesome lyricist whose highly personal songs express sentiments ranging from pure joy to the deepest, darkest despair. Willie Dixon's way with words was impressive, but Rice Miller is something else:

"When I first met the lil' girl / I didn' know what I was doin' /
Now we all tied up / And my life is ruined!
I'm scared o' that child / I'm scared o' that child /
I'm scared o' that child / I'm too young to die!"

She's a cute lil' girl / She got such a wonderful mug /
When she start to talk / Her voice but stone jug /
I'm scared o' that child...

We had a date and I couldn't make it / That's what made 'er mad /
Now I'm lookin' at two brown eyes / They turned greenish-gray /
So I'm scared o' that child...

I called my baby / And I told 'er I would be late /
'Time my baby opened the door I looked in the barrel of a .38 /
I'm scared o' that child..."

23 of these 24 songs are from the 60s, and they are significantly better than Miller's 60s recordings for Delmark, even if this collection doesn't quite maintain the magnificent level of quality of MCA/Chess's main Sonny Boy-compilations.
Among the best lesser-known songs are the funky, playful "Peach Tree", Willie Dixon's swinging "That's All I Want", and the slow "Got To Move" from Miller's first LP, "Down & Out Blues". "Stop Right Now", "The Goat", "Close To Me" and a couple of other great songs will be familiar to those who own "The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson", but not to those who "only" have "His Best". ("Sad To Be Alone", on the other hand, is on "His Best", but not on the "Essential" collection.)

Newcomers will be better off with "His Best", but this CD is a really fine addition to that compilation...the sound is very good, and the liner notes get a B+ as well.
4 1/4 stars. Definitely recommended.

I heard these songs before!
Well sorta heard them before. Being a child of white rock 'n' roll I have only begun to come to terms with my ignorance of music history. I perfectly well knew that rock music is greatly indebted to the blues, and naturally blues-rock bands in particular. I knew Zeppelin covered some blues classics. Clapton, of course. But damn, you gotta hear this music for yourself to appreciate what a debt it is! And while I love the speed, the volume, the attitude, and in-your-face rebelliousness of rock... it doesn't seem to hit as deep. Well that's what I'm feeling now as I explore the music. I'm a novice, but right now I'm just bowled over by the beauty and power of blues musicians like Sony Boy Williamson. Well thought I'd share that with you. And yes, the harmonica playing is incredible on this CD.

A TRUE MASTER OF THE GENRE
SONNY BOY 11, AKA RICE MILLER. THE MOST SOULFUL OF THE CHICAGO BLUES ARTISTS. THERE WAS NO OTHER LIKE HIM. HE IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE OF THE "TRUE FATHERS OF ROCK & ROLL, NOT TO MENTION, R&B." THIS CD HAS MOST OF HI BEST, BUT IT IS MISSING A COUPLE OF MY FAVORITES, LIKE, "DON'T START ME TALKING", AND "I DON'T KNOW." OTHER THAN THAT, IT IS FULL OF GREAT BLUES THAT HAS BEEN REMASTERED BEAUTIFULLY. GREAT BUY!!