“Pinetop Perkins”
2005 - Blues Music Awards, Memphis, TN

Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) began his career as a guitarist but then injured the tendons in his left arm in a knife fight with a chorus girl in Helena, Arkansas. Unable to play the guitar, he switched to the piano. He also moved from Robert Nighthawk's radio program on KFFA to Sonny Boy Williamson's King Biscuit Time. In the 1950s, Perkins joined Earl Hooker and began touring. He recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" at Sam Phillips's Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Pinetop Smith, who created the original recording in 1928, wrote the tune. As Perkins recalled, "They used to call me 'Pinetop' because I played that song."

Perkins replaced Otis Spann in the Muddy Waters band when Spann left the band in 1969. After ten years with that organization, he formed the Legendary Blues Band with Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, recording from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Perkins played a brief musical cameo on the street outside Aretha's Soul Food Cafe in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, having an argument with John Lee Hooker over who wrote "Boom Boom." Perkins was a sideman on countless recordings but never had an album devoted solely to his artistry until After Hours, released by Blind Pig Records in 1988. 

Pinetop Perkins - 10x15 E-Surface Matted Print / 19x23 Final Frame size