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Recent Grammy winner and longtime blues legend Pinetop Perkins passed away at the age of 97, on Monday. Reportedly, Perkins died in his Austin, Texas home after suffering a cardiac arrest. Still an active performer and musician, with gigs even lined up on his schedule at the time of death, Perkins was one of the last -- if not the last -- of a certain breed of original, old-time Delta bluesman. In fact, in 2007, he won a Grammy for his contributions to a live album entitled 'Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas.' He also won a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005 and took home a third Grammy just this past February for best traditional blues album ('Joined at the Hip,' a collaboration with Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith).
According to the Associated Press, fellow blues great B.B. King released an email statement, mourning the loss. "He was the last of the great Mississippi bluesmen," said King. "He had such a distinctive voice, and he sure could play the piano. He will be missed not only by me, but by lovers of music all over the world."
Although Perkins cut his most famous track -- 'Pinetop's Boogie Woogie' (which, incidentally, was a cover) -- in Sam Phillips' studio in Memphis in 1953, it was his work as Muddy Waters' sideman, which began in 1969, that secured his fame as a piano player unlike any other. Perkins remained with Waters' backing band when they abandoned ship to form their own Legendary Blues Band in 1980.
It is because of these associations that Perkins will probably always be thought of as an ambassador of the Chicago blues sound, as well as an original Delta bluesman. Born in Mississippi, Perkins moved from Chicago to Austin, Texas in 2004, where he quickly became a local treasure with national legend status.
As B.B. King surmised, he certainly will be missed.
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