kudzurunner
5247 posts
Jan 15, 2015
7:54 PM
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Another thread featuring some rare and wonderful footage of Rice Miller in a small club in Denmark in 1964 suddenly has me wondering: Who were HIS influences? He's influenced so many players--including, among others, Rick Estrin, Kim Wilson, and Ronnie Shellist--but I can't remember hearing discussion of the players that SBWII himself listened to and learned from. Do you know? I don't, but I'd like to know.
What I don't hear in Aleck "Rice" Miller's playing is very much of John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson's sound--even though he was apparently trying to capitalize on the younger player's name and reputation when he first called himself Sonny Boy Williamson.
Discuss.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Jan 15, 2015 7:54 PM
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Danny Starwars
4 posts
Jan 15, 2015
9:39 PM
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I've always wondered that. When I was first learning I was only influenced by Sonny Terry and SBW2 because that was the only stuff I could find.
I remember a book I had referring to SBW as being really seminal, and I thought about how ST (due to his isolation when younger) pretty much just developing his own stuff. (Later I got to talk to Brownie and he said pretty much the same thing when talking about both his and Sonny's influences, mentioning that Sonny didn't like to leave the house much because of his blindness, and so e just sat by himself and made a bunch of stuff up).
SBW may not have had the actual isolation that ST had, but maybe he was just eccentric enough to be in his own head space a lot and nowhere else much, lol. (Sorry for the lol. Need to get over that habit).
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Lmbrjak
241 posts
Jan 16, 2015
12:36 PM
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He's older than most of the players we've heard of and was playing when radio and recording were just getting started.He played live for yrs., before going on radio or recording. His main influences may be local musicians that we've never heard of.
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CarlA
650 posts
Jan 16, 2015
6:54 PM
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Carlos del Junco? Howard Levy?
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KingoBad
1590 posts
Jan 16, 2015
7:09 PM
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CarlA,
I was thinking Jay Gaunt, LD Miller, or Alex Paclin...
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Danny
Last Edited by KingoBad on Jan 16, 2015 7:10 PM
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jbone
1859 posts
Jan 16, 2015
8:36 PM
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From what I read on an album cover bio some years ago, Rice Miller was a lazy little punk whose sisters spoiled him a lot. They would give him a harmonica which he would sit and play until it crapped out, then they'd get him another. He refused to do any chores or work and his sisters just kept him in harps until he was old enough to play at picnics and parties. He began to make a few bucks playing and the rest is history.
I have no clue where I read this or if it's accurate but I have to guess that he spent a lot of time with a harp in his face over some years. From what we see and hear of him we can tell, he had a deep knowledge of exactly what a harp would do and how to best use it.
To call him enigmatic is an understatement. He had several different personae and more than one birth date depending on who asked. He adopted another harpman's name for his own reasons while the original was alive and working in Chicago. He was likely suffering from very bad teeth for his whole life and was known to keep a bottle of whiskey handy most of the time, I'd guess for the pain in his mouth. He seems to have been unafraid to play any place with anyone at any time. He was a man who rode the harp across the world. Thanks to the American Folk Tours he became something of a darling in Europe and hung out with Eric Burdon and crew. Once he was asked by Eric Clapton why he was using someone else's name and he promptly pulled out a knife to deter any further commentary.
In the early or mid 60's, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, and the rest of the Band were in Helena looking to set up a house as a recording studio for a project, and they met SBII at a juke. Ultimately a local cop ran Robertson and Helms out of the "wrong" side of town and they never got to see SBII again, and not long after he passed. Robertson reported that he was spitting in a can he had next to his chair and Robbie just thought it was snuff juice, but on a closer look he realized it was actually blood. This points to TB or something else equally bad, which may be what ultimately took him out.
Didn't mean to hijack the thread, I said all that to say this- I think he was largely self taught.
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbTwvU-EN1Q
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Danny Starwars
5 posts
Jan 16, 2015
9:19 PM
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"I think he was largely self taught."
I'd agree with that.
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kudzurunner
5250 posts
Jan 17, 2015
1:05 PM
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Any possibility that SBWII picked up on Snooky Pryor's style? They were both from the Mississippi Delta and both worked in Helena.
SBW was born in 1912; Pryor was 9 years later, in 1921. So influence SHOULD have worked the other way.
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MindTheGap
489 posts
Jan 17, 2015
2:23 PM
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Snooky Pryor, in this interview around 1m, says how he grew up listening to SBII, and that was an inspiration.
Robert Palmer's book Deep Blues doesn't provide information on SBII's influences, other than to say that the musical evidence indicates that he developed his style before hearing SBI's music. (Chapter 5 Page 177)
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Jan 17, 2015 2:27 PM
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SuperBee
2331 posts
Jan 17, 2015
2:38 PM
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I'd say that Pryor would've had zero impact by 1930, which seems to be about when Miller began playing for money, probably aged 18. DeFord Bailey almost certainly would've had an impact. By 1941 Sonny Boy's material seems to have been picked up on. As Miller apparently started to play about age 5, probably around 1917, I'd expect his earliest inspirations were probably local and itinerant players, perhaps a family member. His style is full of the vocal imitations typical of the surviving recordings of players in the 20s and 30s era. The same as those who influenced sonny boy Williamson in fact, but Williamson seems to have developed a different direction. Miller's style continued to develop thought the 50s but he seems to have followed his own course and not been unduly influenced by other players during that period in which he was making records. Or perhaps I'm not paying attention closely enough. I don't hear much little Walter influence in his 50s and 60s records though.
Very good question. He's among my earliest inspirations but I'd never thought about this aspect. Just thought of him as an original, but of course there would be sources
Last Edited by SuperBee on Jan 17, 2015 2:52 PM
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SuperBee
2332 posts
Jan 17, 2015
2:48 PM
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Oh, the sonny boy Williamson issue, I'll have to listen to my earliest recordings of miller. Anecdotes suggest he definitely did play in the style of Williamson, but as he didn't record until after williamson's death I guess we don't hear it. There's a well known story (the source of which I don't recall right now) about a meeting between the two, where miller allegedly played 'Sonny Boy's stuff better than sonny boy'...possibly apocryphal but leaves an impression that the sonny boy material was part of miller's repertoire.
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Frank101
59 posts
Jan 17, 2015
4:24 PM
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Believe I hear some Jazz Gillum in there.
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bluzmn
86 posts
Jan 17, 2015
6:15 PM
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I read somewhere (can't remember where) that he took lessons from Walter Horton. Sometimes I can hear it in his playing.
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SuperBee
2337 posts
Jan 17, 2015
8:37 PM
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That Walter Horton story really surprises me. Walter was still a little kid at the time miller began playing for tips. Although Walter claimed to be on a Mississippi Sheiks record (he would have been aged 8 or 9), I don't think there is any corroboration for his claim. They did frequent the same places later on though so I guess it's possible. Hard for me to imagine the adult miller taking lessons from anyone, but suspect that's just me
Last Edited by SuperBee on Jan 17, 2015 9:07 PM
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bluzmn
88 posts
Jan 18, 2015
1:54 AM
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Wherever I saw this, it said that Rice Miller took lessons from "the younger Walter Horton".
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MindTheGap
491 posts
Jan 18, 2015
3:31 AM
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bluzmn - An article on Walter Horton on the Alligator records website says: [Johnny] Shines recalled that Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) used to come to Horton for lessons, though Williamson was the older man.
http://www.alligator.com/artists/Big-Walter-Horton/
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SuperBee
2339 posts
Jan 18, 2015
3:38 AM
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there ya go...
i wonder if the experience was anything like Madcat Ruth recalled of his lessons with WH...
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MindTheGap
492 posts
Jan 18, 2015
3:50 AM
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SuperBee - just in case, I'm not holding this up as FACT, just quoting a 'source' :) But it is on the Alligator Records site, so a person might weigh that accordingly.
I've just been looking through my copy of Tom Ball's Sourcebook for BW/LW licks which has lots of interesting bio. There's no mention of it there and I thought that's the kind of interesting detail he would have included.
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MindTheGap
493 posts
Jan 18, 2015
3:54 AM
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...Re the Madcat Ruth thing, yes that sounded like quite an experience. On that topic Tom Bell quotes Chris Smith's description of BW as: shy, sensitive...often uncommunicative in conversation, he 'spoke' through this instrument...
EDIT: what I mean is, very different from what I read about SBII's character.
Last Edited by MindTheGap on Jan 18, 2015 5:26 AM
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Joe_L
2560 posts
Jan 18, 2015
9:37 PM
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Most of those guys didn't take formal lesions from each other, because they didn't have Skype or YouTube. They had to pay attention and listen and try to recreate what they heard.
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The Blues Photo Gallery
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laurent2015
701 posts
Jan 19, 2015
4:19 AM
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Hello...
On the musical side, SBW could have been influenced by at least 2 guitarists, Robert Lockwood jr and Robert Johnson; on the harmonica techniques, yes, influenced by BWH, "dixit" Willie Dixon, who claims such an influence on Little Walter as well.
BWH gave the ultimate wrapping =gift wrapping= without which SBW wouldn't have been SBW.
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Frank101
61 posts
Jan 19, 2015
8:13 AM
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Yeah. Of course, somebody's public persona doesn't necessarily reflect how they are in private life, but from what I've heard about SB2 I find it really hard to visualize him showing up at Big Walter's door for his weekly harmonica lesson ...
Now, if the real basis for this is something like "Sonny Boy studied BW's playing", or "Sonny Boy learned a lot from BW", that wouldn't raise an eyebrow.
Last Edited by Frank101 on Jan 19, 2015 8:15 AM
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