zzvq | King Biscuit Time

door Jon Editor

In this column: King Biscuit Time, KFFA Helena radio station, King Biscuit Flour, King Biscuit Stomp, King Biscuit Boys, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williams, Big Walter Horton

King Biscuit Stomp

Well good evening, everybody, people tell me, how do you do?
Good evening, everybody, peoples tell me, how do you do?
We the King Biscuit Boys, we just came out to welcome you
...
I got the best King Biscuits, boys, I sell it guaranteed
I got the best King Biscuits, boys, I sell it guaranteed
If it don't do what I said, send it back to Helena and charge it to me
...

Big Joe Williams – vocal and guitar, Sonny Boy Williamson – harmonica, Ransom Knowling – bass, Judge Riley – drums

King Biscuit

King Biscuit was a flour and cookie company. Local firm Interstate Grocery who sold the products, sponsored a radio program in Helena; the King Biscuit Time.

The first broadcast of King Biscuit Time came on November 21, 1941. The radio station was KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. Since that date, King Biscuit Time has been playing the blues every week day.
The popularity of the program made Helena a major blues center. Helena became a stopping place for blues musicians on their way from the Delta region to the Chicago blues nightclubs and was also convenient to Memphis, Tennessee and its lively blues culture. Several blues musicians came to Helena and made it their home, such as Little Walter Jacobs and Jimmy Rogers.

1942 King-Biscuit-Time: Joe Willie Wilkins, Dud Low, Sonny Boy Williams, announcer Herb Langston, James "Peck" Curtis, Willie Love (Photo Ivey Gladin)

King Biscuit Time was also a major breakthrough for African-American music in general. The popularity of the program and its reach into the untapped African-American demographic gained notice and spawned a host of imitators. By 1947 the first black disc jockey in the South, Early Wright, had been signed at WROX across the river. WDIA in Memphis soon became the first radio station in the South with an all black staff (including deejay B.B. King) and musical format based on the success of King Biscuit Time.

B.B.King at radio station WDIA

Brief history of King Biscuit Time – The First Blues Radio Show – Helena Arkansas

Sonny Boy Williamson (aka Rice Miller) and his accompanying band initially performed Mississippi Delta Blues in 1941 on the “King Biscuit Time” broadcast each weekday at 12:15 p.m. on the KFFA radio station in Helena. The eponymous King Biscuit Flour was sold by local firm Interstate Grocery who sponsored this program.
The station selected the 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. time slot to coincide with cotton laborers’ lunch break.

This image shows a King Biscuit Flour and Sonny Boy Cornmeal advertising display container with four product sacks attached inside. Sonny Boy Williamson II (1912-1965) and his band carried and mounted these at different venues they played to encourage these products’ sales

King Biscuit Boys: Big Walter Horton (vocal, harmonica), Houston Stackhouse (guitar), Melvin Lee (bass), Homer Jackson (drums) at Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival, 1973

Sonny Boy Williams (vocal, harmonica), Cliff Bivens (bass), “Frock” (drums), Joe Willie Wilkins (guitar), Dave Campbell (piano) – Do It If You Wanna