Sonny Boy Williamson

Sonny Boy Williamson (Aleck "Rive" Miller) had a show on KFFA. I've written of Sonny Boy Williamson once before in passing and of KFFA twice. This third time is far more obscure, it is too arcane to resist. There turns out to be a song detailing the facts of his last day.

Sonny Boy Williamson was born in 1914 and died in 1948 but his death is largely unexplained. He was only 34 and died of a heart attack. His longtime band-mates at KFFA James Peck Curtis and Houston Stackhouse wrote an ode to him that described the morning of their last show. The Uncensored History of the Blues was kind enough to post the song already. It's 17 minutes into the program and appears on the album Blow My Blues Away Vol 1. The lyrics to "The Death of Sonny Boy Williamson" are below:

"Now ladies and gentlemen, this is ol' James Peck Curtis with the life story of Sonny Boy Williamson. The last night he was with me. I mean, Sonny Boy Williamson used to be on King Biscuit Time on radio station KFFA. The last night we were sitting down at my home listening to the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers. But on that night when he got ready to leave he told me daddio, I'm going home and put the old man to bed. I'll see you in the morning early. Which he had been coming around to my house each and every morning taking breakfast, drinking his coffee we;d sit there and talk to near about broadcasting time.

But on May the 25th which was on a Tuesday, I went around to pick up the program and he hadn't made it there. I hurries to the radio station and check with the disc jockey -they told me that James, they hadn't saw him this morning. That's word I left with the Disco at radio station KFFA. I say I'll go back and check -and which was Neil Wallace. I told him get out some records just in case something done happen and play them if I don't get back. I walked upstairs to Sonny Boy's room, knocked on the door. Nobody said a thing. Awful sad, I pushed the door open and there he lay with his hand across his chest, mouth twisted to one side, I circled and he didn't even smile.

I rushed back downstairs to his landlord. I told them about it. He told me the best thing james, you can do is go call the morgue. I call the morgue and the coroner come . The coroner come and investigate the body. Told me that Sonny Boy had been dead six hours and a half. I thought him had to die between 4:30 and 6:00 that morning. On the back stregnth of that I turn right around call Miss Mattie Williamson in Milwakee Wisconsin and told them about the decease of her husband. Sonny Boy, great guy, my great manager. That's all."

Flour power

The invention of flour predates the wheel. Today there are fewer than 5 national brands of white flour. It was not always that way, and every brand of flour seemed to have a studio band and a radio show tie-in. I looked up a few who';s names no longer grace our grocery store shelves. Full disclosure: my own Kitchen is currently stocked with Cereosota Flour.

In Fort Worth, Texas, The Light Crust Doughboys were assembled by a local flour mill. Their purpose is to advertise Light Crust Flour on KFJZ. It was also carried on the The "Southwest Quality Network." That included KTAT, WOAI, KPRC and KOMA stretching from Ft. Worth to Oklahoma City. The band included Hank Thompson, Bob Wills, Slim Whitman and none other than the man who would eventually become Texas governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. While some of these men are famous now, were then only dock loaders, truck drivers, and salesmen for Light Crust Flour. More here.

Five years later Pappy O'Daniel started his own flour company Hillbilly Flour, complete with it's own backing band: The Hillbilly Boys. You can hear a more audio here if the sample isn't enough for you.

[Audio Expired]

Bright Star Flour Radio Show on KFFA in the afternoons competing with The King Biscuit Hour. it was hosted by Robert Nighthawk. In 1942 he scored the gig advertising their flour backed often by guitarist Joe Willie Wilkins and Pinetop Perkins on piano. More here.

Martha White Flour sponsored probably the most famous bluegrass band of all time from 1948 until 1969. In those years Flatt & Scruggs hosted a regular Opry segment underwritten by Martha White Flour. They'd recorded for Mercury record before that, but it was their single One of their first singles for Columbia, "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered," hitting the Top Ten in 1952, that got Martha's attention. So the Flour company sponsored them on WSM. Their growing popularity led them and their sponsors to the Opry in 1955.

King Biscuit Flour had the infamous King Biscuit Hour. It became the (supposedly) longest running daily radio show in history continuing to this day. It's still carried on 1360 KFFA-AM from Helena, AR. It's early broadcasts in the 1940s featured Blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Jr. Lockwood and other legends.

In 1950 Purity Flour signed the Mark Kenney orchestra to perform a 30-minute programs on the CBC network to be carried across Canada. This move possibly predates the American flour-sponsored programs that seem to start on KFJZ.

Bewley Flour Mills, sponsored a band called the Chuck Wagon Gang, who sang on the WBAP-AM and traveled throughout Texas to advertise flour and feed. It worked well enough that they hired a second band to be the Chuck Wagon Gang in studio so the originals could do promotional tours. In the 1940s Bewley Flour offered a free group photo with a coupon sent in off the flour sack. They received over 100,000 coupons! More here.

General Mills' Red Star Flour sponsored Johnnie Lee Wills & All The Boys recordings to transcription discs. These were syndicated all over the country. On WRNL Red Star continued to sponsor other acts including June Carter to voice their commercials and Chet Atkins on KWTO.

Mother's Best Flour in 1950 and 1951 had none other than Hank Williams singing their praises on WSM. The short 15 minute program ran daily but in between songs Hank and announcer Louie Buck would pitch the flour. Hank even wrote a theme song for the show. More HERE and HERE.

"I love to have that gal around
Her biscuits are so nice and brown
Her pies and cakes beat all the rest
Cause she makes them all with Mother's Best"

source:cowpokeradio.com

Lillian McMurry's radio shop

Radio has strange and tenuous links to music history above below and beyond the obvious ones for broadcasting it. Take for example Holson's radio shop in Mississippi. There's no such thing as a radio repair shop these days, you can buy parts at a radio shack or the like, but in general, radios are either embedded in larger devices, or disposable. So think back before cable, satellite radio and to the hot new technology of the rotary phone...

Lillian McMurry's husband bought a radio repair shop. Lillian herself was the owner and proprietor of Trumpet records. Her big signing was Sonny Boy Williamson, whom she found through his radio show, King Biscuit Time on KFFA Helena, AR. In 1941, Williamson, along with guitarist Lockwood, began broadcasting his show from the Floyd Truck Lines building.
Ten years later would form her label and invite him to record. He stayed with Lil until the label went bankrupt in 1955. Creditors got ahold of Sonny Boy's recording contract and sold it to Chess Records in Chicago. Williamson recorded about 70 more songs for Chess Records then had to flee the country for stabbing a man Chicago.
Elmore James worked at the shop in 1949 fixing radio's until Ms. McMurry started the label. Thereafter he was employed as a rhythm guitarist until he began his own solo career. In 1952 Elmore's dong "Dust My Broom" appeared on Billboard's "Best Seller" R&B chart at #9. At the time Elmore was still working at Holston's radio repair shop. Talent scout Joe Bihari hunted him down there to alter record him at a local night club backing up Ike Turner. Fame was inevitable.
Sonny wrote about Lillian in two songs specifically. Pontiac Blues was about Lillian's Pontiac. And the song 309 was named for 309 Farish Street, Trumpet records street address. In the lyrics he actually gives out Lillian's home phone number. They couldn't have parted too sourly, in 1977 it was Ms. McMurray who paid to erect Williamson's headstone.  Lillian Obit here.

King Biscuit Flower Hour

King Biscuit Flower Hour Radio Show has been on air without inturruption since February 18th 1973. Never has a single show run so long and done so much only to settle into such obscurity.

King Biscuit Flour was manufactured by the Interstate Grocery Company. their first forays into radio were through direct sporsoring of radio programs. These sporsorships were very effective. On 1360 KFFA-AM in Helena, Arkansas local musician Sonny Boy Williamson named his band for his sponsor becoming Sonny Boy Williamson and his King Biscuit Entertainers. Their broadcast stretched across the South reaching a generation of blues artists that would later inspire the rock & roll revolution.

KFFA is still on air today: http://www.kffa.com/ In 1941, KFFA-AM became the first radio station to broadcast live Blues shows. Artists like Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, Albert King, Robert Lockwood Jr, Pinetop Perkins , Honey Boy Edwards, and many others came through those doors. KFFA was the center of a small animated blues scence in Helena that fed the blues eastward directly into Memphis.

Side Note: 990 KWEM-AM Memphis picked up on this and for a time carried the syndicated program. these days KWEM is KWAM-AM and runs a fairly lame set of syndicate talk programs, spanish talk at night and old twilight zone radio drams on sunday evenings. http://www.am990.com

All along the Biscuit staff left the tape running. The King Biscuit Flower Hour continues to broadcast weekly over its syndicated national FM network. Now they use their time each week to connect new fans to classic concerts from the 20 years of Biscuit Archives.

The former King Biscuit Blues festival of Helena AR is going through some tough times> After 21 years I hear the man is trying to hold them down: http://www.bluesandheritage.com/petition.htm