Pinetop Perkins is one of the last great Mississippi bluesmen still performing. He began playing blues around 1927, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest blues pianists of all time. He created a style that has influenced three generations of piano players, and will continue to be the yardstick by which great blues pianists are measured.

Born Willie Perkins in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1913, Pinetop started out playing guitar and piano at house parties and honky-tonks, but dropped the guitar in the 1940s after sustaining a serious injury in his left arm. Perkins worked primarily in the Mississippi Delta throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, spending three years with harpist Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time radio show on KFFA in Helena, Arkansas. He also toured extensively with slide guitar player Robert Nighthawk and backed him on an early session at Chess Records. After briefly working with B.B. King in Memphis, Perkins barnstormed the South with Earl Hooker during the early ‘50s. The pair completed a session for Sam Phillips’ famous Sun Records in 1953. It was at this session that Perkins recorded his version of Pinetop Smith’s “Pinetop’s Boogie.”

Still, with the exception of his recent solo successes, Perkins is otherwise best known for holding down the piano chair in the great Muddy Waters Band for twelve years during the zenith of Muddy’s career. Replacing Otis Spann in 1969, Perkins helped shape Muddy’s sound and anchored his memorable blues combo throughout the ‘70s with his brilliant solo work. In 1980, Pinetop and other Waters alumni struck out on their own and formed the Legendary Blues Band. The group recorded two records for Rounder and toured extensively.

Perkins, who had been labeled a sideman throughout most of his career, eventually left the Legendary Blues Band to concentrate on a solo career. Within two years, he made his first domestic recording as a frontman, and maintained an impressive touring schedule. Since launching his solo career, he has been featured on many nationally syndicated news and music shows, and has appeared in numerous movie productions and TV and radio ads. He has also headlined nearly every major showcase room in North America and most of the major festivals around the world.

Ironically, Perkins waited for his eighth decade to blossom as a headliner, releasing fifteen solo records in fifteen years beginning in 1992. Born in the Delta, his Telarc debut, documented an amazing historical figure and offered an abundance of entertainment value for contemporary audiences. On his 1998 release, Legends, Perkins collaborated with master blues guitarist Hubert Sumlin. Together they blended the traditional delta blues sound with modern electric blues rock, showcasing the timeless spirit and energy of this inherently American art form. Both CDs – Born in the Delta and Legends – were nominated for GRAMMY Awards in 1997 and 2000, respectively. These were followed by a 2005 GRAMMY nomination for Ladies Man, released on MC Records.

Other awards and accolades include a National Heritage Fellowship in 2000 from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a consistent annual winner of the Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Award for Best Piano Player until 2003, when he was retired from the award, which now bears the name Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year Award. In 2005, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual GRAMMY Awards. He was featured in the Piano Blues documentary, an installment directed by Clint Eastwood for the Martin Scorsese PBS series, The Blues.

In 2007, still on the road in his 94th year, Pinetop Perkins’ unique life was chronicled in Peter Carlson’s biographical documentary DVD, Born in the Honey. The documentary package includes a live CD with a rare studio outtake track.

In 2008, he recorded Pinetop Perkins and Friends, an album of blues standards that includes numerous guest musicians – Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Jimmy Vaughan, Nora Jean Bruso, and many others. The album is set for release on June 3, 2008, just a few weeks before Perkins’ 95th birthday.