Pinetop Perkins

Pinetop Perkins
"I Just Do the Best I Can"
by Richard Skelly

Pinetop Perkins Hittin the Note Pinetop Perkins will be 94 on this summer, but you'd never know it based on the way he gets into my car. The left foot goes in smoothly; he plants his butt and pivots, and then quickly lifts the right leg in. You'd swear he was 60, based on that simple act. Perkins is a certified blues piano playing legend. He can safely be grouped with B.B. King, the late Willie Dixon and John Lee Hooker as one of the true pioneers of the Delta-to-Chicago blues form. Perkins was born into a plantation family on July 7, 1913 in Belzoni, Miss., and began to teach himself guitar while still in grade school. He never completed more than a 3rd grade education, he readily admits in interviews.

Guitar influences for a young Perkins included early classic blues players like Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson and LeRoy Carr. His first exposure to a larger audience came about through performances on the radio in the 1940s. He began playing on the Bright Star program, then broadcast on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas.

After recovering from a stabbing incident in his left arm that left him unable to play guitar so well, he began concentrating his efforts on piano playing. Perkins' recording career began in Memphis, where he recorded "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie." The tune was originally recorded by Pinetop Smith, but Perkins did it over again in his own style, and around 1950, as best he can recall, is when they began calling Joe Willie Perkins by the name of "Pinetop" Perkins.

Hittin' the Note: Can you start by telling us a little bit about Born in the Honey, your latest CD/DVD release?

Pinetop Perkins: It's the area where I was born, Belzoni, Mississippi, Honey Island in the Delta Bottoms.

How long has it been since you moved to Austin?

I moved there a couple of years ago, but no sooner than I moved there, that Clifford Antone died. No sooner I moved there than he died, and man, that hurt me. Me and Muddy Waters used to play for him at his club.

When was it you moved from Belzoni?

I come out of there when I was round about 16 or 17 years old.

You were thinking about playing more music up in Chicago?

Well, I did the best I could, I was looking at other people doing it and picked it up and did the best I could with it. I liked it around Chicago, and I could have stayed there, but we always had to go somewhere and play. I didn't get no good schoolin', and third grade was the best I got. It's nowhere, so it's rough.

Once you got to Chicago as a 17 year old, what did you do?

I just played around in different places. I didn't get no job, just played around in different places. They kept me in them clubs all the time and I did the best I could.

Were you working four or five nights a week?

The last job I had I learned how to drive tractor, and after the landlord killed my dog in Clarksdale, I was thinkin', "I might be next!" I loved that dog. So I took off. Got off there and went over to Helena, Arkansas, playing with Sonny Boy Williamson, on the King Biscuit Program on the radio. I was over there a pretty good while, a couple of years. I liked it over there in Helena. It ain't no big town.

Once you got to Chicago, who did you learn from?

I listened to this guy, Pinetop Smith, and then in 1953 I redid his song, played it my own way.

What was the most fun you ever had on the road?

It was with Muddy Waters. I loved playing with him, and we went all over Europe, every which where. That was in the 1970s, and we had a booking agent and we wasn't making too much money from them tours.

I always thought some of the best records Muddy made were those ones that Johnny Winter produced for Blue Sky, for Columbia Records.

Those are good ones.

Talk a bit about why you were able to move to Austin. Isn't your family mostly in Chicago?

What little family I got is in Mississippi. A whole lot of them died before I left and my sister died a long time ago, before my mama did. I had a bunch of friends and people in Chicago, but no family.

I was in Europe when my mother died, so I didn't have a chance to go to the funeral or nothin'. When I got back they had done buried her. My mother and father busted up when I was six years old.

When you left Chicago for Austin, you didn't have family there, it was just a bunch of friends?

It was just a bunch of friends. I have a stepdaughter, Betty, she's in Chicago.

Austin is better for you, temperature wise?

Yeah, it's nice and warm there, not like Chicago, you can freeze to death there.

Talk a bit about your approach to life at 93. You talked about staying active and working in the yard when you were living in Chicago, the last time we talked about 15 years ago.

I don't too much and no kind of work now, I just play some music. I praise the Lord every day that I'm able to do that. So I just play the music for the people. Make a dollar or two. I ain't much of a talker, I'm a squawker. If my mother and father had stayed together so I'd had more schoolin, and I'd know more about what to say and do. So now, I just do the best I can. That's all I can do!