Pinetop Perkins, ‘Boogie Woogie’ Blues Pianist, Waters Sideman, Dies at 97

[truthisfreedom]

Source: Bloomberg

“I just wanna make people happy and make a dollar or two,” Perkins told Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper in 2006. “It’s all I know to do.”

Perkins outlived most of his peers even though he smoked from the age of 9, battled alcoholism into his 80s and ate at McDonald’s Corp.’s fast-food restaurants daily.

In 2007, he became the oldest musician to receive a Grammy Award. He was honored for playing on the album “Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas.” Two years earlier, he had won a lifetime-achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which sponsors the Grammys.

The Blues Foundation named its piano player of the year award for him after he won the category 12 times in a row, from 1992 to 2003. He received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2000.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/pinetop-perkins-boogie-woogie-blues-pianist-waters-sideman-dies-at-97.html

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How long would he have lived without the cigs, booze and fast food?

[Wilms]

1. Here's a live clip from @ 3 years ago.

Pinetop Perkins w/Willie "Big Eyes" Smith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C56XVVp_H3I

[slay]

6. Awesome - thnx for posting this

we need more Pinetop Perkins in the world. not out to get rich, just out to have fun and put a smile on people's faces. hell - got him to the age of 97. :)

[marasinghe]

11. thanks. n/t

[Tunkamerica]

2. to 65? Imagine how long he'd have lived if he started using cocaine... he'd have warlock blood

[lob1]

3. He played with Muddy Waters a lot. He was great.

I'll miss him.

[wtmusic]

5. Yep, saw him several times with MW

thirty years ago. Time flies.

[lob1]

7. Time flies. Boy, doesn't it. Mark Twain said,

"After 40, you eat breakfast every 15 minutes." It sure seems that way.

[wtmusic]

10. Great quote. I hadn't heard that one. nt

[jaysunb]

4. RIP

An original in every way.

[dipsydoodle]

8. Anyone got a link

to Pinetop Perkins 50's recording of Pinetop's Boogie Woogie - the one Clarence "Pinetop" Smith did in 1929.

I've tried Youtube and can't find it.

[Scuba]

9. He'll be missed. Yeah. "That's what I'm talking about." n/t