Though he did not create the classic piano composition "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," Pinetop Perkins now claims far greater public recognition for the piece than its actual author, Clarence "Pinetop" Smith. A native of Mississippi, Perkins reached Chicago comparatively late in life despite his eventual status as a local institution. Only after Muddy Waters hired him in 1969 as Otis Spann's replacement did his expansive keyboard technique achieve widespread notice.
Perkins initially pursued the blues as a guitarist until an encounter in the mid-1940s with an irate chorus girl wielding a knife at a Helena, Arkansas club severed tendons in his left arm and ended those ambitions. From that point forward Joe Willie Perkins devoted himself entirely to the piano. He had arrived in Helena in 1943 alongside Robert Nighthawk and performed with the slide guitarist on Nighthawk's KFFA broadcasts before shifting to Sonny Boy Williamson's long-running King Biscuit Time program, where he stayed for years. A 1950 Chess session backing Nighthawk yielded "Jackson Town Gal," yet Perkins did not remain in Chicago then.
In the early 1950s Earl Hooker enlisted Perkins for road work that included a 1953 stop at Sam Phillips' Memphis studio, where Perkins first recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie." After time in downstate Illinois he moved to Chicago, though music receded in importance until Hooker persuaded him to record an Arhoolie album in 1968, just as Otis Spann's departure from Muddy Waters opened the door for Perkins' return.
More than ten years alongside Muddy Waters ended when Perkins and fellow band members departed together to establish the Legendary Blues Band. Their initial Rounder releases, Life of Ease and Red Hot 'n' Blue, featured Perkins' fluid piano work and seasoned vocals. Earlier he had recorded a 1976 Black & Blue album in France and contributed four tracks to Alligator's 1978 Living Chicago Blues series. His first U.S. album, After Hours, appeared on Blind Pig in 1988. Subsequent releases on Antone's, Omega (the solo Portrait of a Delta Bluesman, which incorporated interview material), Deluge, Earwig, and additional labels kept his signature style prominent in later decades. In 2010 Perkins teamed with harmonica player Willie "Big Eyes" Smith for Joined at the Hip, which earned a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album and established Perkins as the oldest recipient of the award. On March 21, 2011, little more than a month after the ceremony, the blues pianist suffered a fatal heart attack at his Austin, Texas home at the age of 97.
