Little Sonny Biography
Aaron Willis, 6 October 1932, Greensboro, Alabama, USA. Despite the claims of his first album, its evidence shows that Little Sonny Willis is an adequate harmonica player and reluctant singer whose music career has been, at best, intermittent. With little experience in music apart from singing in church choirs, Willis moved to Detroit in 1954. Working as a photographer in the bars of the Hastings Street area, he also picked up the rudiments of the harmonica. His first gig was in the Good Time Bar with Washboard Willie’s band. Willis gained some harmonica tuition from Sonny Boy ‘Rice Miller’ Williamson, from whom he adopted his nickname. In March 1956, he formed his own band with pianist Chuck Smith, guitarist Louis (Big Bo) Collins and drummer Jim Due Crawford. Two years later Smith, Crawford and Eddie Burns
backed Willis on his debut record, ‘I Gotta Find My Baby’, for Duke Records. Another record, ‘Love Shock’, recorded by Joe Von Battle, was leased to Excello. An unissued 1961 session for Chess Records presaged a five-year recording silence, followed by singles for Speedway, Revilot (including the instrumental ‘The Creeper’) and Wheel City at the end of the decade. In 1969 he recorded his first album for the Stax Records
subsidiary Enterprise. New King Of The Blues Harmonica, an album of mostly uninventive instrumentals, evoked Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. A second album, Hard Goin’ Up, released in 1973, was a more honest, balanced exercise. Albert King recorded Willis’ ‘Love Shock’ and ‘Love Mechanic’ for Tomato in 1978. King Albert was recorded in Detroit and used Willis’ sons, Aaron Jnr., Anthony and Eddie, in the back-up band. Perhaps their father had read King Lear.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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