Sonny Boy Williamson II
Help Me
Solo
This is the first real solo in the song and Sonny boy incorporates a few of his own riffs into it. When you hear this, there is no doubt who is playing the harp.
Sonny comes out of the turnaround of the last verse and starts a warble going on the 3 and 4 hole draws.
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After about 16 times he draws the 3 down to break up the warble a little and indicate the bar change.
The warble continues for a few more times and Sonny Boy takes a breath. He then jumps up to a wail on the 5 draw. This is like a fast 4, implied, but not played. He slides up the 5 and catches a little 4 draw on the way up.
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Sonny Boy steps down, none to cleanly from the 5 draw to a 5 blow, a 4 draw, 4 blow down to the 3 draw where begins his warble again. The steps are loose and bleed notes from either side as he slides down.
He takes another big breath - all those cigarettes are taking their toll on him. He hits the 5 draw wailer again, lightly touching the 3 and the 4 draw on the way up.
This time he doesn't play the 5 hole blow, but slides to the 4 draw instead, skipping the blow note. In order to keep the note count right he pulls down, bending the 4 draw and then letting it loose again. He then slides quickly through the 3 draw and the 2 draw. He's setting up for one of Sonny Boy's coolest patterns.
I visualize this as a kind of Celtic knot. Sonny boy is playing a 3 in 4 rhythm twist that is hard to wrap your mind around. This is played as soon as the organ goes to the 4 chord and sounds best when played as a kind of melody break counterpoint to the 4 chord.
I have trouble on the pattern of Blow-Blow-Blow in the middle where he plays the 4 hole blow, 3 hole blow and back to 4 hole blow. My mind doesn't want to do that. Then at the end of the first iteration he plays a 3 draw and a 4 blow to get him back to the 4 draw in the second iteration. I want to take a breath or pause there. Sonny Boy fills that space. Then at the end, the 4 draw bent, sliding up to the 4 draw seems to be a surprise as the organ goes back to the 1 chord and Sonny Boy has finished his little complication.
He slurs the last bit of the above riff - maybe he's running out of air. Not all the notes are clean and he's bending his draws just a little flat, especially the 3 draw - that first bend is part of the minor sound of the music.
At the end of a long wail on the 4 he bends it down and back up and then slides down to the 2 draw. The 3 and then the 2 draw are just touched as he slides off the 4 draw.
Just so we won't forget. Sonny Boy's wonderful timing catches the two chugs at exactly the right time. You can hear him exhale after the chugs to get the breath for this finale to the verse.
He then heads up for a 5 draw wail for the 5 chord, hitting a few notes on the way up, dropping down to the 4 draw, then bending it and back up to the unbent 4 draw.
Wail...
After the wail you can hear him do a little warble up and down from the 4 to the 5 draw, ending after only two of these with the 4 draw bent. He then exhales, sounding the 4 hole blow, but you can hear a little 2 and 3 and even some 5 blow. This is a very muddy sound and he is really getting breath for the chord change.
The song goes into the 4 chord and he does another warble thing, but more complicated then a two note warble. I have this slowed down and I hear this complicated thing, that you can't hear when played at normal speed.
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The main pattern is a warble with a draw-blow pattern, drawing on the 3 and then blowing on the 4. (The 2 hole at the beginning is just the step up into this pattern.) What Sonny Boy does on the second and third times through this pattern is slide the draw up to the 4 draw immediately blowing on the 4. This gives a little bluesey shuffle sound to the warble. He doesn't do it the last 2 times and then he drops down to the 2 hole blow when the organ hits the 1 Chord.
As in the Intro, Sonny Boy chugs through the turnaround.
There is much more to the song, but it's supper time and this is getting to be too much like work.
Good luck with it.
