Merry Christmas, Pretty Baby

How might music history be different if Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins wasn't such a nice guy? Born in Belzoni, Ms. in 1913, the affable piano man got his start playing the keyboards for Robert Nighthawk's KFFA radio show in 1943. Then a short time later Sonny Boy Williamson offered Pinetop more money to play with him on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Pinetop's boogie woogie piano style was in high demand then and would be for many decades to come.

When Otis Spann left Muddy Waters in 1969 to go out on his own, Muddy didn't have to look long for a replacement, he wanted the man with the old-school Delta style, Pinetop Perkins. Pinetop contributed to Muddy's sound for the next ten years.

But it was back at a dance in Moorehead in the 40's when Pinetop was flying high as Sonny Boy's boogie woogie right hand man that a single act of generosity perhaps turned out to be his greatest contribution to music. As Robert Palmer tells it in his essential blues history "Deep Blues" Pinetop befriended a precocious kid from Clarksdale who idolized the piano star and wanted to learn to how to play that boogie woogie piano. The kid was Ike Turner.

Pinetop didn't have to take the time to give some kid free music lessons, but he did. And they took. Ike of course went on to become quite a good musician and while still a teenager wrote and recorded in 1951 what is largely regarded as the first rock and roll song "Rocket 88" with his saxophone player Jackie Brenston on lead vocals at Sun Studio with Sam Phillips. Phillips leased the song to Chess Records in Chicago, it hit number one and Phillips used the money to start his own record label, Sun Records.

Music fans the world over would be indebted for years to come.

Most remember Ike today because he went on to have a successful career with another lead singer, Anna Mae Bullock, whom he married and gave the stage name Tina Turner.

At 95, Pinetop still has that boogie woogie going on. He records and tours and is now considered an elder statesman of the blues. Ike died a year ago this month.

Both men recorded the classic 1947 Charles Brown song "Merry Christmas Baby."

Turner's 1964 arrangement is soulful and intense, as you might expect. Perkins' version from just a few years ago is laid back and cool, just like the man. Both draw from a piano style learned years before in the Mississippi Delta.

They take different stylistic paths, but both the teacher and the student eventually arrive at the same location, just like they did back in Moorehead in the early 40's. Merry Christmas, baby.

(Click to hear Pinetop Perkins' Merry Christmas Baby)

(Click to hear Ike & Tina Turner's Merry Christmas Baby)

News Roundup

Legendary Mississippi Sheiks to get their due

On a recent holiday, Steve Dawson—guitar maestro and founder of local label Black Hen Music—had the bright idea of putting together a tribute album to one of his favourite bands, the Mississippi Sheiks. Other than the blues classic “Sitting on Top of the World”, the Sheiks’ songs are largely unknown to today’s music fans, despite having been revered by Americana-influenced musicians since the ’30s. In those days, the trio was one of the hottest—and sauciest—acts around, and it influenced such legends as Memphis Minnie, Robert Johnson, and Big Bill Broonzy. “Much of their stuff remains obscure,” Dawson told the Straight. “They disbanded in 1935, but were one of the first bands to generate crossover interest from both black and white communities. What’s going to make this different from the regular tribute album is that, for the most part, there’s going to be a house band and the musicians are coming here to record over a three-day period.” The artists appearing on the album—which is scheduled to be out in March 2009—include Madeleine Peyroux, Bill Frisell, Bruce Cockburn, John Hammond, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Bob Brozman, Kelly Joe Phelps, Geoff Muldaur, Van Dyke Parks, and Dawson’s recording buddies Jim Byrnes and the Sojourners. “Ry Cooder has also agreed to do it, much to the chagrin of his lawyer. We don’t know how it’s going to shake down, but he would be recording in L.A.,” Dawson said.

Eden Brent: The sultry voice of the Mississippi Delta Blues

With a sultry voice like thick molasses, splashed with a shot of Jack Daniels, Eden Brent approaches the piano with the eagerness of a long-lost lover, determined to make up for lost time. An engaging aptitude with the keyboard, earthy and one-of-a-kind vocals, and a palpable, gutsy energy are just a few things that have helped Brent find success in the music world. Most folks around these parts already had a head's up on Brent's talent, and now, with the release of her latest CD, “Mississippi Number One,” the rest of the world is going to be let in on the secret. A Greenville girl born and reared, Brent says she can't remember a time when she didn't want to be a singer. But it was not until her introduction to Greenville bluesman Boogaloo Ames that Brent says she began to discover who she was as an artist. When she was 19, Brent says she finally plucked up enough courage to ask Ames, who by that time was a legend in the Port City, for lessons. And it was that one request that changed the rest of her life, says Brent, who spent the next 16 years learning from and working with Ames. Since launching her solo career, she was named a 2004 inductee into the Greenville Blues Walk, the 2006 winner of the Blues Foundation's International Blues Challenge, and has headlined venues across the world, including the Kennedy Center, the British Embassy, and tours in South Africa and Norway.

Elvis tribute artiste has Delhi rocking

Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, set India's capital on fire. The hip-shaking, gyrating rock sensation of the 60s and the 70s was in full regalia - his trademark long sideburns, high-collared sequinned jacket - as he belted out favourites like 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'All Shook Up' in his deep resonant baritone. Only it was not the King in person. Award-winning Canada-based Elvis tribute artiste Stephen Kabakos took the audience back in time to the swinging 60s and the 70s in the country's first ever Elvis Presley tribute concert at the Hotel Radisson on Wednesday night. The performer, who was crowned the Grand Champion at the 2001 "Images of the King World Competition" in Memphis, Tennessee, is one of the top three Elvis tribute artistes in the world.

95 years of blues: 'Pinetop' Perkins comes to Marin

With a Nicasio show coming up and a new album, famed piano man Willie 'Pinetop' Perkins isn t letting age slow him down. I thought for sure that the last time I saw blues great Willie "Pinetop" Perkins would be the last time I'd ever see Willie "Pinetop" Perkins. Let me explain: Revered as the piano player in the legendary Muddy Waters Band, Perkins is a blues hall of famer whose barrelhouse style has influenced generations of rock and blues musicians. I had the pleasure of meeting him five years ago when he played West Marin's Rancho Nicasio with his pal Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. That night, he recorded tracks for a live album, the Grammy-nominated "Ladies Man," with Marin's Elvin Bishop and Angela Strehli sitting in. At the time, he was one of the last of the old-time Mississippi bluesmen still performing. I figured the old cat had used up his nine lives with that little confrontation with a train and, given his advancing years, thought it would be a pretty safe bet I'd never have the chance to see him play again. Which is why I don't gamble. Since then, Perkins has won two Grammys - for lifetime achievement in 2005 and another last year for traditional blues album for a concert recording with Henry James Townsend, Robert Lockwood Jr. and David "Honeyboy" Edwards called "Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas." Townsend and Lockwood died in 2006, leaving Perkins and Edwards as two of the few surviving bluesmen with a direct, first-hand connection to seminal figures like Waters and harmonica ace Sonny Boy Williamson. In his time, Perkins played with both of them. This week and last, Perkins was in his native Mississippi for ceremonies dedicating a couple of Mississippi State Blues Trail Markers in his honor. He's also up for Blues Foundation award for his DVD, "Born in the Honey - The Pinetop Perkins Story." He'll be celebrating his 95th birthday on July 7 with a new "Pinetop Perkins and Friends" CD, set to be out in June, with guests Eric Clapton, B.B. King and Jimmy Vaughan.

In related news: Blues marker honors Hopson Plantation, Pinetop Perkins

The History of BB King - The Legendary Blues Guitarist

In his youth he played on street corners for dimes and pennies! He was born on 16 September, 1925 on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. He spent his youth playing on street corners for dimes. Today B.B. King (Riley B. King) averages 250 'packed to the rafters' concerts around the world each and every year. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, Tennessee to pursue his music career and it is first love. His first major break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio broadcast. As the years well by, King has developed one of the world's most identifiable guitar styles. He borrowed from Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker and others, incorporating his distinct and complex voice-like string blends and his left-handed vibrato, both of which have become vital components of a blues guitarist's vocabulary. His economy, his every-note-counts phrasing, has been a model for thousands of players from Eric Clapton and George Harrison to Jeff Beck. In the mid-1950s, two men got into a fight during one of King's performances. The men knocked over a kerosene stove and set fire to the venue. King raced outdoors to safety and then realised he'd left his beloved acoustic guitar behind. He rushed back in to retrieve it and almost lost his life. He found out later that the fight had been over a woman. He named his guitar Lucille to remind him to never do a crazy thing like fight for a woman. Ever since, each one of King's guitars has been called Lucille.

Blues Trail: Pinetop Perkins

The Mississippi Blues Trail hosts its next marker ceremony at noon on Saturday, May 3, 2008 in Belzoni to honor Pinetop Perkins.

Pinetop Perkins

Pinetop Perkins: 94 years old and still pounding the piano (Citizen Times, North Carolina): "Pinetop Perkins has been playing the blues so long that when he started, radio was still a newfangled novelty. Maybe the senior star on the blues circuit, Perkins’ career dates to 1927, and yet the musician, who turns 95 in July, continues to tour....Born Joe Willie Perkins in Belzoni, Miss., Perkins started off playing both guitar and piano...Perkins told The New York Times that he played at chicken fights, where his pay was the dead chicken. His nickname came from the classic blues tune “Pinetop’s Boogie” by Pinetop Smith. He is best-known for a long hitch playing piano with the Muddy Waters Blues Band, 1969-80. Margolin also worked in that group. Perkins and others from the Waters band left to begin their own act." (Read The Full Story)

Friday News Roundup

Hattiesburg native Hot Dollar has new material out: a single "Streets On Lock" and the album "My Dreams...A Day in the Life." DJBooth.net has an interview with this up and coming rapper.

Bluesman David Honeyboy Edwards, a Shaw, Mississippi native, is approaching his 92nd birthday in Chicago and as this article makes clear "sees no reason to slow down."

Gary Clark Jr - the "future of blues music in Texas" - plays with Mississippian Pinetop Perkins tonight at Antone's in Austin, Texas.

Pinetop Perkins DVD

Josh Perkins reviews the new music DVD documentary on Belzoni native and blues legend Pinetop Perkins.

Perkins writes: Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins is a national treasure. Forget Mount Rushmore and to hell with the Grand Canyon – old rocks and dead men are no match for a timeless spring of eternal blues....

He was born in Belzoni, Mississippi [in 1913] on the Honey Island plantation. Perkins has taken to saying he was “born in the honey,” a turn of phrase that now serves as the title of a 60-minute documentary on his incredible life.

He started playing music at an early age, learning both guitar and piano as a youngster before leaving home around age 16....He moved to Clarksdale in 1940, not long after the moonshine operation he helped run got broken up. His fellow entrepreneurs were apprehended by the law. He escaped and decided it was time for a change of scenery....Perkins knocked around Memphis, St. Louis, and Cairo, Illinois throughout the '50s. While in Memphis, he taught Ike Turner to play piano. He also recorded on a session with Earl Hooker for Sun Records. While there, he recorded “Pinetop's Boogie Woogie,” which was originally recorded by Clarence “Pinetop” Smith. The song meant so much to Perkins that he donned the nickname himself, becoming even more famous than its originator....

Born in the Honey assembles a wonderful cast of blues legends to both pay tribute to Perkins as well as swap stories about time spent with him. Bobby Rush has a great story about Pinetop the prankster. Ike Turner, Bob Margolin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, Ann Rabson, Paul Oscher, Dr. John, Lonnie Brooks, Hubert Sumlin, Taj Majal, Kim Wilson, Marcia Ball, Koko Tayler, and Bernard Allison are all interviewed during the documentary as is Pinetop himself....

Pinetop Perkins is a blues icon, and Born in the Honey does a fine job of telling his story....Also included in the package is a 10-song CD, Pinetop Perkins on the 88s. The first nine tracks are taken from a live performance.

(Read the full article here.)