Joseph William "Pinetop" Perkins (July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011) was an American blues pianist.
He collaborated with Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Earl Hooker and inspired Ike Turner. he won a Grammy for best traditional blues album.
His caliber of keyboard brilliance had not often been encountered in blues, and his early 1950s recording of Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's showpiece "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" established his reputation and gave him his famous nickname.
He began his career as a guitarist but A crazy chorus girl attacked him with a knife and cut his tendons. in Helena, Arkansas. Unable to play the guitar anymore and he switched to the piano.
At the age of 97, Perkins won a Grammy Award in the category Best Traditional Blues Album for Joined at the Hip, which he recorded with Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, thus becoming the oldest winner of a Grammy Award, edging out the comedian George Burns, who had won in the spoken word category 21 years earlier (Perkins, at the age of 90, had tied with Burns in 2004).
A little more than a month later, on March 21, 2011, Perkins died at his home in Austin. At the time of his death, he had more than 20 performances booked for 2011. Shortly before he died, while discussing his late career resurgence with an interviewer, he conceded, "I can't play piano like I used to either. I used to have bass rolling like thunder. I can't do that no more. But I ask the Lord, please forgive me for the stuff I done trying to make a nickel."[citation needed] He and David "Honeyboy" Edwards were the last surviving original Delta blues musicians. Perkins was also one of the last surviving bluesmen to have known Robert Johnson .
