Alex or Aleck Miller (originally Ford, possibly December 5, 1912[3][a] – May 24, 1965),[4] known later in his career as Sonny Boy Williamson, was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter.

[6] He toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival and recorded with English rock musicians, including the Yardbirds and Animals.

[8][9] Miller's gravestone at Tutwiler, Mississippi, set up by record company owner Lillian McMurry twelve years after his death, gives his date of birth as March 11, 1908.

[4][10] In a spoken word performance called “The Story of Sonny Boy Williamson” that was later included in several compilations, Miller states that he was born in Glendora, Mississippi in 1897.

[11] He lived and worked with his sharecropper stepfather, Jim Miller, whose last name he soon adopted, and mother, Millie Ford, until the early 1930s.

He brought his King Biscuit musician friends to West Memphis—Elmore James, Houston Stackhouse, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Robert Nighthawk, and others—to perform on KWEM radio.

[16] In the early 1960s he toured Europe several times during the height of the British blues craze, backed on a number of occasions by the Authentics (see American Folk Blues Festival), recording with the Yardbirds (for the album Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds) and the Animals, and appearing on several television broadcasts throughout Europe.

[17] Sonny Boy took a liking to the European fans, and while there had a custom-made, two-tone suit tailored personally for him, along with a bowler hat, matching umbrella, and an attaché case for his harmonicas.

[18] Upon his return to the U.S., he resumed playing the King Biscuit Time show on KFFA, and performed in the Helena, Arkansas area.

Peck left the radio station to locate Williamson, and discovered his body in bed at the rooming house where he had been staying, dead of an apparent heart attack suffered in his sleep the night before.

It is believed that Miller adopted the name to suggest to audiences (and to his first record label) that he was the "original" Sonny Boy.