LITTLE ROCK — Pinetop Perkins and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith - who together have lived 170 music-filled years - teamed up on Joined at the Hip, a CD that turned out to be the 2011 Grammy Award-winning best traditional blues album, which no doubt was enough of a treat to make Smith’s fabled “Big Eyes” even bigger.
“We’ll be there, wearing tuxedos,” Smith said in an interview before the recent Grammy ceremony. After the awards were handed to the two men, both of whom have ties to Helena-West Helena, they were understandably ecstatic, with Perkins, 97, resting, enjoying his new status as the oldest Grammy winner ever and Smith, 75, eager to return to the land of award winners (he has won 12 Blues Foundation Awards).
“This is the first one [Grammy] for me, but it won’t be the last,” Smith says. “I’m in there now.”
Perkins is no stranger to Grammy awards, having won a 2007 Grammy for best traditional blues album for his collaboration on the Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live in Dallas.
With his latest win, Perkins claimed the honor of being the oldest Grammy winner from the late George Burns, who won in 1990 at the age of 95 for his spoken category recording, Gracie: A Love Story.
Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins was born in Belzoni, Miss., in 1913 and now lives in Austin, Texas. He spent three years in the 1940s on the King Biscuit Time show on radio station KFFA in Helena. Starting out as a guitarist, he switched to piano after a knifing in 1942 seriously injured his left arm. His keyboardist resume includes stints with John Lee Hooker, Robert Nighthawk, B.B. King and Muddy Waters, with whom he spent a dozen years after replacing Otis Spann in 1969.
Perkins was in his 70s before he went solo; he then averaged an album a year for 15 years. Clint Eastwood featured Perkins in his documentary Piano Blues, which was part of Martin Scorsese’s PBS series, The Blues. In 2007, his life was the focus of Peter Carlson’s documentary, Born in the Honey.
Smith was born in Helena in 1936 and recalls that when he was 6 years old he saw Perkins perform in Helena and decided he, too, would build a career as a bluesman. Smith moved to Chicago at 17 as a harmonica player who later switched to drums.
“Money was scarce in those days and I went to Chicago to spend a couple of weeks,” Smith explains. “I got a job pretty quick, and the money was pretty good, but I meant to go back to Helena when it was time to pick cotton. Since I had a car and was making $50 a week working in a junkyard, I just didn’t go back.
“I had started playing at some house parties when I ran into the guy who was Muddy Waters’ chauffeur. He used to baby-sitfor me in my Arkansas days and he suggested I go see Muddy play one Sunday evening.”
Muddy let Smith sit in, and he became a band member until 1980, playing on all of Waters’ Grammy Award-winning albums and backing him when he played on The Last Waltz, Scorsese’s documentary about The Band’s final performance. Smith and Perkins were in the John Belushi comedy The Blues Brothers, accompanying John Lee Hooker.
In recent years, Smith has alternated between his two instruments, and also added vocals to his job skills.
Smith’s 36-year-old son, Kenny, now plays the drums in Perkins and Smith’s band.
“I remember when Kenny was a little kid and he would get the drumsticks out, and one day he said ‘I’m gonna beat you at that!’ and he has done a good jobof doing just that. He can mix it up, just like I did when I started playing blues and rock ’n’ roll.”
Now that Smith and Perkins have been acclaimed for their work, they’re not about to rest on their laurels, Smith says.
Joined at the Hip, released in 2010 by Telarc Records, contains 13 songs, six of which were written or co-written by Smith, plus one by Perkins. There are also songs by the bluesman known as Sonny Boy Williamson, along with songs by Bill Broonzy, “Lil Son” Jackson, Thomas Dorsey and Billy Flynn.
“We’re talking about our next CD we plan to do together, “ Smith said. “Once you’ve got something going on, the record companies don’t want to hear about anybody wanting to stop. Musically, we connected. He’s still a good piano player, and he can sure play those country blues.”
Pinetop Perkins & Willie “Big Eyes” Smith Opening act: Voodoo Sauce 9 p.m. Saturday, Stickyz Rock ’n’ Roll Chicken Shack, 107 River Market Ave., Little Rock Tickets: $20 (501) 372-7707
Weekend, Pages 37 on 02/24/2011