I like what he's done with the audio clips: he plays through some Rice Miller licks "the polite way" (no bends), and then the Sonny way: notes flattened a quarter- or half-tone.
************UPDATE: I returned to this thread on Dec 30 to add more info about SBW II.************
Last Edited by on Dec 30, 2009 12:06 AM
That's whee Magic Dick got part of his intro for Whammer Jammer. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
When I first heard that Dec 5 was purported to be Rice Miller's birthday, I told Wilf at www.harpsurgery.com that he should write a post around it. But before I did that, I wanted to check the date. The swirl of half-truths and whole lies that Rice Miller carried around him through his life is the stuff of legends - particularly regarding his age.
So I wrote to Sonny Boy's biographer Bill Donoghue to try verify the date. He very kindly got back to me, but I never got 'round to publishing his response. For no reason other than procrastination, here's an interesting portion of his email. [I noted his claim that Sonny Boy was born in 1912 rather than 1899 as normally stated - Donoghue arrived at this conclusion thanks to census data. I asked him whether December 5 is a reliable date]
"The year 1912 is pretty solid as he was 7 in the 1920 census records and no Alex is in the 1900 and 1910 censuses. As both of his sisters told me he was the youngest of 21 children of Jim and Millie Miller the year is probably correct.
"December 5 is the most often mentioned date he had give although he gave others, this is the one that came most often from Sonny Boy himself. I don't see any reason to think it is otherwise. I am sure with 21 children that there was probably not a budget or incentive to give many birthday parties. Of course, there is no birth certificate. In 1912 not even white children in Mississippi got birth certificates.
"I have the last Wedding certificate, his social security records, his death certificate, at least two passport applications and an arrest record and when all analyzed this seems the plausible date.
"The date on the gravestone is wrong both as to his birth and death dates and even his name; so that's not reliable. Few of his relatives knew the other relatives (I know more than any of them know) and his wife and best friends didn't even know where he was born (he was probably born in Money MS in Tallahatchie County and soon moved to Glendora, which claims him as his own and has 17 of his relatives).
"When Robert Lockwood Jr. first met him in 1931, he was calling himself "W. M." but Willie Miller was his brother's name. Willie had moved away from Glendora and we just recently found him in other census records."
There's a few more tidbits in his email that I'll save for another rainy day.
Last Edited by on Dec 30, 2009 12:07 AM
