Sonny Boy Williamson: Polly Put The Kettle On
[purchase]
With this, we'll cover Polly.
There were two Sonny Boy Williamsons. John Lee Curtis Williamson was the first. The second was Aleck "Rice" Miller. They both were singers, songwriters and they both played the harmonica. Polly Put The Kettle On, the poem, dates from the latter part of the 18th century,which was written by a father of five children, three girls and two boys, who were constantly fighting over what games they wanted to play.The girls wanted to play house and the boys preferred to be soldiers. So when the girls wanted to ditch their brothers, they would start playing a game of tea party by saying, "Polly put the kettle on", Polly being one of the three girls. Then when the brothers left, sister Sukey, the name being a varient of Susan, would take off the kettle. Their father wrote a poem and set it to music out of his amusement. Except for the title, this song bears very little resemblance to that.