RE: [Harp-L] Rice Miller's age

[Tom Ball <havaball@xxxxxxx>]

Michael Rubin said:
H-Town Fess said: there are claims that the census says SBWII barely 
made it past fifty. This seems completely contradictory to my 
understanding, I see pictures of him that seem like he is at least 70 
years old.  There is only one picture I know of with him looking 
anywhere around 40 years old, everything else he seems to be 60 years 
old or older.  Am I missing something?
-----------

My understanding is that a birth certificate indeed turned up, citing 
his birth as in December 1912. As I recall it was unearthed by 
researcher David Evans.

This would make Sonny Boy only 52 at the time of his death -- a 
supposition that seems unlikely, considering his aged appearance in 
later photographs and film clips. But then he lived a hard life, and, 
as with all things Sonny Boy, we may never know for sure.

His passport was made out in the name Sonny Boy Williams, born April 
7, 1909.  His gravestone reads Aleck Miller, born March 11, 1908. His 
recording contract with Trumpet Records was in the name of Willie 
Williamson. The book Blues Who's Who sets his birth date at December 
5, 1899; his sisters set it at March 11, 1908; his biographer has it 
as December 5, 1912; one of his own songs sets it in 1897, and he 
once told Blues Unlimited magazine that he was born in 1901.

David "Honeyboy" Edwards (b. 1915) remembers (in his autobiography) 
meeting him in about 1929: "I first met Sonny Boy Williamson when I 
was only fourteen.  That was out at Shellmound on the Bledsoe 
Plantation.  He must have been around thirty years old then." But 
then, with all due respect to Honeyboy, his recollections have been 
less-than-accurate on other points. <shrug>  It seems Sonny Boy's 
life was often one big and rather chaotic mystery. Amazing to think 
his entire recording career lasted only 14 years....

But what gems he recorded!

cheers,
Tom
http://www.tomball.us