Pinetop Perkins

It’s hard to believe this album wasn’t made a long time ago, actually, since blues pianist Pinetop Perkins and drummer and harmonica player Willie "Big Eyes" Smith have worked together frequently in the past 40 some years. Perkins replaced the legendary pianist Otis Spann in Muddy Waters' band in 1969 when Smith was the drummer in the ensemble, and later Perkins and Smith formed the Legendary Blues Band in the 1980s. Perkins was 96 years old when the sessions for Joined at the Hip were recorded, but one wouldn’t know it, and Smith, now out from behind the drum kit (his son, Kenny Smith, plays drums here), concentrates on his harp blowing and handles most of the vocals. The result is a solid Chicago blues record, one that feels like it could have been tracked anytime in the past four decades…

Here are two legends of Chicago Blues - Pinetop Perkins & John Brim. John got a hit for Chess Records: “Ice Cream Man” in the 50´s. The Wolf All Star Band played together with him: John Primer, Willie Kent, Tim Taylor & Billy Branch. Pinetop was not only a sideman for Muddy Waters, he was a great piano player and singer too! On this CD, only Tim Taylor played drums with him and sang some great Blues Classics.

In 2001, legendary blues pianist Pinetop Perkins was edging up on 88 years of age when he played the concert date in Chicago documented on this album. Perkins sounds plenty spry here, but this certainly doesn't capture the great man at his best; Perkins was a pioneer of the boogie-woogie style and was a longtime member of Muddy Waters' band, but most of On the 88's: Live in Chicago is devoted to easygoing midtempo numbers that sound a bit timid compared to what he played in his prime. Perkins shows he still had a great touch on this recording, and his timing is more than fine, but his left hand doesn't quite anchor these tunes the way he did in his salad days (it might have helped if he'd been given a better piano for this gig, since the instrument has the tone of a second-rate electronic keyboard), and even if his singing is game, his voice was showing its wear.

Primarily known as sidemen, pianist Pinetop Perkins and guitarist Hubert Sumlin, if not as widely recognized as the artists they've supported, do have something of a legendary status in the blues world. Thus, this CD where the two of them take the lead (providing vocals as well) is aptly titled. The material consists mainly of longtime standards such as "Got My Mojo Working," "Rock Me Baby," "Hoochie Coochie Man," and "The Sky Is Crying," all performed with the considerable skill attained through years of experience. If Perkins and Sumlin's approach to these tunes isn't exactly innovative, it is rock solid and energetic, with plenty of excellent lead work from them both. Also notable is Annie Raines's harmonica, which provides solid counterpoint to the two leads, and occasionally takes the lead on its own.

A Chicago Blues legend in concert with a superb band. Available for the first time on CD! This superb album from the legendary Muddy Waters band member was originally released as a vinyl lp in 1985 and this is the very first CD release. The band features Bill Dicey on harmonica. This set was one of Pinetop's first recordings under his own name after a lifetime of playing with some of the greatest names in electric blues. Pinetop Perkins was a bluesman who found fame late in life. Active in the 1950s on the Memphis scene, he left the music for many years. But then came back just when blues legends had a new, wider audience in the late 1960s. A gifted blues piano player and delightful singer he had the full package as bandleader. But he found his fame as piano player with Muddy Waters.

A very competent combo offers incendiary support behind the veteran Chicago pianist throughout the album, recorded live before an appreciative gathering.
In keeping with the spontaneous tradition of the blues, it includes one entire set of music, recorded at Bowdoin College, from start to finish. This record also includes the late, late night finale, recorded the night before, at the Tradewinds Blues Plus Lounge in Rockland, Maine.

These superstar guest "friends" affairs can get awfully tiresome, but this one is better than most. It was recorded over a two and a half year period when the irrepressible Chicago blues and boogie pianist was 92-94 years old, yet he seems decades younger. The songs are generally Chicago blues standards such as "Got My Mojo Working," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Look on Yonders Wall" and, Lord help us, "Sweet Home Chicago." Still, if anyone has earned the right to give these chestnuts another go-round it's Perkins. Even though he's played nearly all of them thousands of times, he's as enthusiastic and invigorated as if he'd just written these well-worn classics. The piano man is spry on the 88s, tinkling the ivories like he's half his age, especially on the jaunty "Take it Easy Baby," the lively opener…

He admittedly wasn't the originator of the seminal piano piece "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie," but it's a safe bet that more people associate it nowadays with Pinetop Perkins than with the man who devised it in the first place, Clarence "Pinetop" Smith. Although it seems as though he was around Chicago forever, the Mississippi native actually got a relatively late start on his path to Windy City immortality. It was only when Muddy Waters took him on to replace Otis Spann in 1969 that Perkins' rolling mastery of the ivories began to assume outsized proportions.

By 2004, Pinetop Perkins may have entered his twilight years, and the fiery action he brought to the 88s in Muddy Waters's band in the 1960s may have mellowed to a smoother blues, but Ladies Man proves he's still got the juice. The idea behind the album was to pair Perkins with an assortment of female musicians, all of whom have cited the elder statesman as an influence. The guest stars, including Ruth Brown, Marcia Ball, and Susan Tedeschi, add texture and flavor to Pinetop's well-worn vocals and still vital boogie-woogie stylings.
The tunes Pinetop sings on, from the laid-back "Chicken Shack" to the rollicking "Big Fat Mama," sound as warm and familiar as old friends. But when Madeleine Peyroux takes the mic on "He's Got Me Goin'," unleashing a butter-smooth croon, or when Odetta lays down her deep alto on "Trouble in Mind," the session takes off…

Pinetop Perkins played piano until he was 97 years old, so this previously unreleased set featuring Perkins relaxed and nimble in both solo and small-combo studio sessions in 1986, when he was a young 73 years old, is really just a drop in the bucket of his long career (which began in 1969 when he replaced Otis Spann as Muddy Waters' piano player). But it is indeed a heavenly drop at that, since Perkins is so obviously comfortable here. Among the highlights are versions of "Sitting on Top of the World," with longtime friend Willie "Big Eyes" Smith on vocals, and "Since I Fell for You," featuring the soulful voice of Otis Clay.