1. Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins was an American blues pianist.
25 Facts About Pinetop Perkins
1. 2.
Pinetop Perkins played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame.
3.
Pinetop Perkins 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 in the 1940s.
4.
Pinetop Perkins moved from Robert Nighthawk's radio program on KFFA to Sonny Boy Williamson's King Biscuit Time.
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Pinetop Perkins continued working with Nighthawk accompanying him on "Jackson Town Gal" in 1950.
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Pinetop Perkins recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" at Sam Phillips's Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Pinetop Perkins then relocated to Illinois and left the music business until Hooker persuaded him to record again in 1968.
8.
Pinetop Perkins replaced Otis Spann in the Muddy Waters band when Spann left the band in 1969.
9.
Pinetop 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".
10.
Pinetop Perkins appeared in the 1987 movie Angel Heart as a member of guitarist Toots Sweet's band.
11.
Pinetop 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.
12.
In 2001, Pinetop Perkins performed at the Chicago Blues Festival with Ike Turner.
13.
Pinetop Perkins was driving his automobile in 2004 in La Porte, Indiana, when his car was hit by a train.
14.
Pinetop Perkins usually performed a couple of nights a week at Momo's, on Sixth Street.
15.
The song "Hey Mr Pinetop Perkins", performed by Perkins and Angela Strehli, played on the common misconception that he wrote "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie":.
16.
On March 21,2011, Pinetop Perkins died in his sleep of cardiac arrest at his home in Austin, Texas at the age of 97.
17.
Pinetop Perkins was laid to rest in the McLaurin Memorial Garden cemetery in Clarksdale on April 2,2011, following a final open-casket "homegoing" celebration.
18.
Pinetop Perkins was one of the last surviving bluesmen to have known Robert Johnson.
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Pinetop Perkins was the symbol of a whole generation of musicians.
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Pinetop Perkins was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000.
21.
In 2003, Pinetop Perkins was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
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Pinetop Perkins was nominated in the same category for his solo album Pinetop Perkins on the 88's: Live in Chicago.
23.
At the age of 97, Pinetop Perkins won a Grammy Award in the category Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, which he recorded with Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, thus becoming the oldest winner of a Grammy Award, edging out the comedian George Burns, who had won in the spoken word category 21 years earlier.
24.
Pinetop Perkins has been the subject of two documentary films: Born in the Honey and Sidemen: Long Road to Glory.
25.
Pinetop Perkins appeared in Clint Eastwood's 2003 documentary Piano Blues.