Pinetop Perkins & Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith - Joined At The Hip (2010)

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. The sound is big and warm and alive, and this is the Chicago blues without any annoying and unnecessary flash – it just socks home where it’s supposed to, with solid ensemble playing (Bob Stroger is on bass and John Primer and "Little Frank" Krakowski handle the guitars while Perkins, of course, mans the piano and Smith adds appropriate harmonica fills, with Kenny Smith on drums). Highlights include the opener, “Grown Up to Be a Man,” a fine version of Sonny Boy Williamson's “Eyesight to the Blind” (the second Sonny Boy – “Eyesight” was his first single back in 1951), and a compelling “I Would Like to Have a Girl Like You,” which was written by Billy Flynn, who was also a member of the Legendary Blues Band with Perkins and Smith. Produced by Michael Freeman, Joined at the Hip is Chicago blues played straight and true, headed up by a couple of veteran blues musicians who not only know what they’re talking about, they’ve also lived it.– by Steve Leggett

1. Grown Up To Be A Man 4:02
2. Cut That Out 4:01
3. Take Your Eyes Off My Woman 4:24
4. Walkin' Down The Highway 6:40
5. Gambling Blues 4:13
6. I Would Like To Have A Girl Like You 4:19
7. Take My Hand, Precious Lord 5:58
8. You'd Better Slow Down 4:10
9. Minor Blues 2:50
10. I Feel So Good 4:12
11. Lord, Lord, Lord 5:33
12. Grindin' Man 4:07
13. Eyesight To The Blind 3:57

BIO:Pintop Perkins 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.Perkins began his blues existence primarily as a guitarist, but a mid-'40s encounter with an outraged chorus girl toting a knife at a Helena, Arkansas nightspot left him with severed tendons in his left arm. That dashed his guitar aspirations, but Joe Willie Perkins came back strong from the injury, concentrating solely on piano from that point on. Perkins had traveled to Helena with Robert Nighthawk in 1943, playing with the elegant slide guitarist on Nighthawk's KFFA radio program. Perkins soon switched over to rival Sonny Boy Williamson's beloved King Biscuit Time radio show in Helena, where he remained for an extended period. Perkins accompanied Nighthawk on a 1950 session for the Chess brothers that produced "Jackson Town Gal," but Chicago couldn't hold him at the time.Nighthawk disciple Earl Hooker recruited Perkins during the early '50s. They hit the road, pausing at Sam Phillips' studios in Memphis long enough for Perkins to wax his first version of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" in 1953. He settled in downstate Illinois for a spell, then relocated to Chicago. Music gradually was relegated to the back burner until Hooker coaxed him into working on an LP for Arhoolie in 1968. When Spann split from Muddy Waters, the stage was set for Pinetop Perkins' re-emergence.After more than a decade with the Man, Perkins and his bandmates left en masse to form the Legendary Blues Band. Their early Rounder albums (Life of Ease, Red Hot 'n' Blue) prominently spotlighted Perkins' rippling 88s and rich vocals. He had previously waxed an album for the French Black & Blue logo in 1976 and four fine cuts for Alligator's Living Chicago Blues anthologies in 1978. Finally, in 1988, he cut his first domestic album for Blind Pig, After Hours. After that, Pinetop Perkins made up for precious lost time in the studio. Discs for Antone's, Omega (Portrait of a Delta Bluesman, a solo outing that includes fascinating interview segments), Deluge, Earwig, and several other firms ensured that his boogie legacy wouldn't be forgotten in the decades to come. In 2010 he collaborated with harmonica whiz Willie "Big Eyes" Smith for the album Joined at the Hip, which won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album, giving Perkins the status of oldest Grammy winner ever. On March 21, 2011, just over a month after the award ceremony, the legendary bluesman died from a heart attack at his home in Austin, Texas. Pinetop Perkins was 97 years old.– by Bill Dahl

BIO:Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith The longtime drummer with the Muddy Waters Band, bluesman Willie "Big Eyes" Smith was born in Helena, AK, on January 19, 1936; raised by his sharecropper grandparents, as a child his neighbors included the likes of Robert Nighthawk and Pinetop Perkins. At 17 he traveled to Chicago to visit his mother, and never returned home; instead Smith taught himself harmonica and drums, and with harpist Clifton James and guitarist Bobby Lee Burns formed a blues trio. Upon marrying his first wife in 1955, Smith agreed to retire from performing, but within a year he was backing Arthur "Big Boy" Spires; after a brief attempt at fronting his own band, he returned to his drum kit, joining Hudson Shower's Red Devil Trio. After a few lean years that forced him to go on welfare, Smith joined Waters in 1961 and remained with the blues giant until 1980, when he co-founded the Legendary Blues Band. His first solo recording, Bag Full of Blues, did not appear until 1995; Nothin' But the Blues Y'all followed four years later and Blues from the Heart was issued in fall 2000. Bluesin' It appeared in 2004 from Electro-Fi while the pleasant Way Back was released in 2006 by Hightone Records.– by Jason Ankeny