Pinetop Perkins

At 95 years young, Pinetop Perkins is one of the last great Mississippi bluesmen still performing. He began playing blues around 1927 and is widely regarded as one of the best blues pianists. Perkins created a style of playing that has influenced three generations of piano players and is widely considered to be the yardstick by which great blues pianists will continue to be measured.

Born Willie Perkins, in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1913, Perkins started out playing guitar and piano at house parties and honky-tonks but dropped the guitar in the 1940s after suffering a serious injury to his left arm. Perkins worked primarily in the Mississippi Delta throughout the 1930s and ’40s, spending three years with Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA, Helena, Arkansas. He also toured extensively with slide guitar player Robert Nighthawk and backed him on an early Chess session.

After briefly working with B.B. King in Memphis, Tennessee, Perkins barnstormed the South with Earl Hooker during the early ’50s. The pair completed a session for Sam Phillips’ famous Sun Records in 1953. It was at this session that he recorded his version of Pinetop Smith’s Boogie Woogie. Perkins is best known for holding down the piano chair in the great Muddy Waters Band for twelve years during the highest point of Muddy’s career. Replacing the late, great Otis Spann in 1969, Perkins helped shape the Waters sound.

Beyond his musical accomplishments, Perkins is a friendly, charming and gentle man who is quick to joke and play with words, and who still goes out every night. He loves people and loves to make everyone around him feel good, sharing his special gift by playing the piano and singing his blues.