He was born on a farm near Vance, Mississippi. He taught himself to play piano and organ and began playing in a local church when he was 14. Soon played in juke joints in the whole delta area. In 1925 he went to Memphis, Tennessee where he played with local musicians like Little Brother Montgomery and Ma Rainey. There he also got his stage name writing a song about the Sunnyland train which ran between Memphis and St. Louis, Missouri. In 1942 he went to Chicago.