Willie “Pine Top” Perkins! 95 years young he is one talented living legend. http://www.pinetopperkins.com/
Photo by Mike Freeman.
I have seen Pine Top play many times and he is not to be missed. I remember back in the 1980’s he played at a blues festival in Greensboro and I was backstage having a chat with him. As I recall I had raised some money for a concert banner for the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society http://www.piedmontblues.org/ I was rolling a few cases and amps as they say…and I was fortunate to get to spend some time with some real talented artists from all over the country that day. My favorite out of all of them was Pine Top. He signed my cd with a gold sharpie and shook my hand when we finished chatting. The man has HUGE hands. And he is such a down to earth human. So unassuming. He has no idea how cool he is.
Later in the next year I saw Willie in a bar as Bob Margolin http://www.bobmargolin.com/ was playing. He came into the bar and sat down by himself. I came over and asked if I could share the bench and watch. He said ‘sure” and proceeded to play for an hour telling me stories and answering my never-ending series of questions about playing with all the old school blues players. This man has lived… let me tell you. He is the man on the keys in the blues world. Go check out his new cd released last month. The cd features players like Eric Clapton, BB King, Jimmy Vaughn, and the list goes on….
As I said when I introduced Pine Top on my radio show once, “He has a huge set of hands and a cool set of music.”
Happy Birthday to Pine Top Perkins!