Pinetop Perkins, one of the last of the original Mississippi Delta bluesmen who also became the oldest recipient of a Grammy award this year, has died aged 97. He never gave up touring until the weeks before he passed away Monday at his home in Austin, Texas. "He was absolutely the premier blues piano player," said Bruce Iglauer, founder of Chicago's Alligator Records, an independent blues label.
Born Willie Perkins on a cotton plantation near Belzoni, Mississippi in 1913, Perkins began his blues career as a guitarist but switched to piano after he was stabbed in the arm in a bar. Perkins played with the greats - Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Robert Nighthawk, Earl Hooker - and influenced generations of musicians.
"Pinetop would be the birth of rock 'n' roll, because he taught me what I played," Ike Turner told the Chicago Tribune in 2004. Like many of his generation, Perkins left Mississippi for Chicago, establishing his reputation with the 1953 recording of Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's showpiece "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie." Perkins didn't blossom as a headliner until he started recording solo albums in his 80s. But he was prolific - recording 15 albums in 15 years - and was no nostalgia act.
His latest album - "Joined at the Hip: Pinetop Perkins & Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith - won the Grammy Award last month for best traditional blues album. He was also awarded a 2007 Grammy for his work on "Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas" and won a Grammy for lifetime achievement in 2005.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.