Click on the title to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Sonny Boy Williamson performing "Keep It To Yourself".
CD Review
Sonny Boy Williamson: His Best: 50th Anniversary Chess Edition, Sonny Boy Williamson, Chess Records, 1997
I hope I never get tired of reviewing the various blues greats that I have spent the better part of the last couple of years trying to highlight. And I probably won’t. However, one little problem tends to keep creeping up. Just when I think that I have hit all the blues high-binders that are possible to mention without just running out into the street and reviewing some itinerant street player along comes another one that it would be a sin, a mortal sin, not to mention. That is the case here with the work of Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Carter version, for those who want to get into that controversy over who the real Sonny Boy is, or was), master harmonica player, no, make that harmonica wizard.
One of the things that got added, significantly, when the blues went north to Chicago (and other such environs) and went electric in the post-World War II period was the increased use of the harmonica to drive the beat, or act as counter-point to it, as the case may be on any particular song . We all know, or should know, of the key role that Muddy Walters and his various bands played in this with the emergence of Little Walter and later James Cotton. Note should also be taken of Howlin’ Wolf’s role when he was in his prime, and drove everyone crazy with that voice and THAT harmonica he practically inhaled on things like “How Many More Years”. Well, how do you think these guys learned the tricks of the harmonica trade? One way or another at the feet of Sonny Boy.
And the proof? Well just take about ten out of the twenty selections in this 50th Anniversary of Chess Records edition. Perhaps any ten will do but here are my stick outs. Keep in mind that most of the lyrics are monstrously “politically incorrect” but “Keep It To Yourself,” “Your Funeral And My Trial,” Down Child,” and, the well-known “Help Me” are a good sampler.
Help Me
Sonny Boy Williamson
You got to help me
I can't do it all by myself
You got to help me, baby
I can't do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll have to find myself somebody else
I may have to wash
I may have to sew
I may have to cook
I might mop the floor
But you help me babe
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll find myself somebody else
When I walk, walk with me
When I talk, you talk to me
Oh baby, I can't do it all by myself
You know if you don't help me darling
I'll have to find myself somebody else
Help me, help me darlin'
Bring my nightshirt
Put on your morning gown
Bring my nightshirt
Put on your morning gown
Darlin I know we stripped bare
But I don't feel like lying down
by Willie Dixon
Blues Lyrics - Sonny Boy Williamson II
Your Funeral And My Trial
All rights to lyrics included on these pages belong to the artists and authors of the works.
All lyrics, photographs, soundclips and other material on this website may only be used for private study, scholarship or research.
by
Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller)
The Essential Sonny Boy Williamson (Chess/MCA 9343)
Please come home to your daddy, and explain yourself to me
Because I and you are man and wife, tryin' to start a family
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
If you can't treat me no better, it gotta be your funeral and my trial
When I and you first got together, 't was on one Friday night
We spent two lovely hours together, and the world knows alright
I'm just beggin' you baby, please cut out that off the wall jive
You know you gotta treat me better, if you don't it gotta be your funeral and my trial
Alright
The good Lord made the world and everything was in it
The way my baby love is some solid sentiment
She can love to heal the sick and she can love to raise the dead
You think I'm jokin' but you better believe what I say
I'm beggin' you baby, cut out that off the wall jive
Yeah, you gotta treat me better, or it gotta be your funeral and my trial
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