Muddy Waters was looking for a new piano player when chain-smoking journeyman Pinetop Perkins showed off his aggressive keyboarding during a jam session.
"He liked what he heard. The rest is
history," said Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, who was a drummer in
Waters' band back in 1969.
By then, Perkins, an old school bluesman with the
gravelly voice, for years had played the rickety bars among the cotton fields
of the Mississippi Delta, and toured far beyond them with rock pioneer Ike
Turner in the 1950s. He performed with the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson and
slide guitarist Robert Nighthawk.
When he and Waters hooked up, Pinetop was in his
50s and never had recorded an album of his own but "had more energy than
us younger folks did," Smith said.
That verve kept him jamming in the clubs and
collecting Grammy Awards until shortly before his death from cardiac arrest
Monday at his Austin, Texas, home. He was 97.
Perkins' skills came not from any sort of formal
training but from an innate ability and love for a musical form that arose from
the South's plantation system.
"I didn't get no schooling. I come up the hard
way in the world," Perkins told The Associated Press in a 2009 interview.
Bob Corritore, a harmonica player who performed
occasionally with Perkins and produced some of his work, said, "Pinetop
could find the cracks and fill them in and be the glue and mortar of the whole
band."
Fellow great bluesman B.B. King was saddened by the
loss of his friend.
"He was one of the last great Mississippi
Bluesmen. He had such a distinctive voice, and he sure could play the piano. He
will be missed not only by me, but by lovers of music all over the world,"
King said in an emailed statement.
Perkins won a Grammy in February for best
traditional blues album for "Joined at the Hip: Pinetop Perkins &
Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith." That win made Perkins the oldest Grammy winner,
edging out late comedian George Burns, who was 95 when he won in the spoken
category for "Gracie: A Love Story" in 1990.
Perkins also won a 2007 Grammy for best traditional
blues album for his collaboration on the "Last of the Great Mississippi
Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas." He received a lifetime achievement Grammy
in 2005.
Neil Portnow, president of The Recording Academy
that awards the Grammys, called Perkins "a legendary bluesman and master
piano player."
"A force to be reckoned with, his robust
playing style and distinctive voice were unmistakable," Portnow said.
"Whether performing solo or jamming with other notable talent, his
charisma and energy stood out in every song. His legacy has informed and
inspired so many generations, and will continue to do so for many more to
come."
Even at his advanced age, Perkins was a fixture at
Austin clubs, playing regular gigs up to last month. He had more than 20
performances booked this year, said Perkins' agent Hugh Southard. And after
they won the Grammy this year, Smith and Perkins discussed recording another
CD.
"I thank the Lord for me being here all the
time. I play any piano with a good tune," Perkins said in 2009.
Perkins, whose real first name was Willie, was born
in 1913 in Belzoni, Miss. He gave himself the nickname "Pinetop"
because he liked the music of an earlier performer named Pinetop Smith,
Corritore said.
And piano wasn't his first choice of instrument. He
started out on the guitar.
"But due to a misunderstanding with a woman he
was stabbed in the arm and had tendon damage so he switched to piano,"
said Corritore said.
Perkins accompanied Williamson on the popular King
Biscuit Time radio show broadcast on KFFA in Helena, Ark., in the 1940s, but
was known mostly as a sideman until he started recording his own style decades
later.
"Boogie Woogie King" was Perkins' first
solo album in 1976. Beginning in 1992 with "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie,"
he released a string of 15 albums in as many years.
"There were times I got to spend full weeks
with him working on projects. Through all of it, he was just strong and
steady," Corritore said.
Perkins lived his life in the tradition of many
bluesmen, rambling from place to place, watching most of his contemporaries
pass on. He moved to Austin in 2004 to live with an associate since he had no family.
His manager, Patricia Morgan, said funeral
arrangements were pending in Austin and a graveside service would be held near
Clarksdale, Miss., where he wanted to be buried.
"We knew he lived a good life. What can you
say about the man? He left here in his sleep. That's the way I want to
go," said Smith.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
