LITTLE SONNY

Willis “Little Sonny” Aaron does not easily fit the mold into which most bluesmen are cast. He’s younger — not quite forty — and neither smokes, drinks nor does he partake of the weed or any other ‘dope’. “I couldn’t go on stage and do a good job if I were high,” he states emphatically. “If I’ve got an audience, that’s all the alcohol I need.”

His origins, though, do parallel all too closely those of many contemporary bluesmen. Born in a one-room shack in Greensboro, Alabama, much of his childhood was spent with an empty stomach. He never saw his father, and his mother would get upset when he listened to blues programs on the radio. She considered it “the old people’s way, something dirty”, yet she was the one who bought him his first nickel harmonicas.

Although'interested in the blues, his major childhood infatuation was with baseball. He played on several sandlot teams in Alabama, and it wasn’t until he moved to Detroit in 1955 that music got its claws firmly into him. Once he heard the legendary harp master Sonny Boy Williamson, that was all the impetus he needed to practice his harps for hours upon hours, and finally to adopt the name “Little Sonny” for his own. Little Sonny was soon to become not just a professional pseudonym of A^ron Willis, but a complimentary referral by other musicians, fans and critics alike.

Working in a used car lot in the daytime, Little Sonny made the rounds of the Motor City bars at night, taking Polaroid pictures and hoping for the stray chance to sit in with the musicians. After seeing Sonny sitting in with Washboard Willie, the owner of the Good Times Bar offered him a gig at ten dollars a night for three nights'a week. Within six months, Sonny was appearing with his own band. In the years which followed, he was literally all over Detroit, playing as many as five shows a night at bars like the Apex and the Congo Lounge.

At this time, Little Sonny also bounced around from record company to record company. He started with Duke Records, although, due to musician and union problems, he never saw the inside of a studio. He then signed with J.V.B., for whom he recorded “Love Shock” and came up a whopping $25 richer for the venture. He started his own label, Speedway, but airplay was non-existant and sales confined to the clubs he worked. After going nowhere with Excello and Wheelsville (though he did sell a few copies of “Orange Pineapple-Cherry Blossom Pink”, he never saw a cent in royalties), he finally hit the charts in Detroit with “Sonny’s Bag”. He signed with Stax in 1969, and seems to have found a happy home there: his last LP was the number one blues album in Detroit, and number three on the local LP charts.

The man has some good things to say, be they as Aaron Willis in Detroit or as Little Sonny on stage, Give a listen.