Pinetop Smith
Encyclopedia
Clarence Smith, better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929) was an American
boogie-woogie
style blues
pianist
. His hit
tune, "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," featured rhythmic "break
s" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime
music.
He was a posthumous 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
.
and raised in Birmingham, Alabama
. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the T. O. B. A. vaudeville
circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time he worked as accompanist for blues
singer Ma Rainey
and Butterbeans and Susie
.
In the mid 1920s he was recommended by Cow Cow Davenport
to J. Mayo Williams
at Vocalion Records
, and in 1928 he moved, with his wife and young son, to Chicago
, Illinois
to record. For a time he, Albert Ammons
, and Meade Lux Lewis
lived in the same rooming house.
On 29 December 1928 he recorded his influential "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," one of the first "boogie woogie" style recordings to make a hit, and which cemented the name for the style. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a house-rent party
in St. Louis, Missouri
. Smith was the first ever to direct "the girl with the red dress on" to "not move a peg" until told to "shake that thing" and "mess around".
Smith was scheduled to make another recording session for Vocalion in 1929, but died from a gunshot wound in a dance-hall fight in Chicago the day before the session. Sources differ as to whether he was the intended recipient of the bullet. "I saw Pinetop spit blood" was the famous headline
in Down Beat
magazine.
No photographs of Smith are known to exist.
and Pete Johnson
as a key influence, and he gained posthumous fame when "Boogie Woogie" was arranged for big band and recorded by Tommy Dorsey
& His Orchestra in 1938. Although not immediately successful, "Boogie Woogie" was so popular during and after World War II
that it became Dorsey's best selling record, with over five million copies sold. Bing Crosby
also recorded his version of the song.
From the 1950s, Joe Willie Perkins
became universally known as "Pinetop Perkins" for his recording of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie". Perkins later became Muddy Waters
' pianist and later, when in his nineties, recorded a song on his 2004 Ladies' Man album, which played on the by-then-common misconception that Perkins had himself written "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie".
Ray Charles
adapted "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" for his song "Mess Around", for which the authorship was credited to "A. Nugetre
", Ahmet Ertegun.
In 1975 the Bob Thiele Orchestra
recorded a modern jazz album called I Saw Pinetop Spit Blood that included a treatment of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" as well as the title song.
Gene Taylor
recorded a version of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" on his eponymous 2003 album.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie
Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...
style blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. His hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
tune, "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," featured rhythmic "break
Break (music)
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece....
s" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
music.
He was a posthumous 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame was founded in 1978, and opened a museum on September 18, 1993, with a mission "to foster, encourage, educate, and cultivate a general appreciation of the medium of jazz music as a legitimate, original and distinctive art form indigenous to America...
.
Career
Smith was born in Troy, AlabamaTroy, Alabama
Troy is a city in Pike County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 18,003. Troy experienced a growth spurt of over 4,000+ people since 2000. The city is the county seat of Pike County....
and raised in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the T. O. B. A. vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time he worked as accompanist for blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
singer Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....
and Butterbeans and Susie
Butterbeans and Susie
Butterbeans and Susie were a comedy duo made up of Jodie Edwards and Susie Edwards, née Susie Hawthorne . Edwards began his career in 1910 as a singer and dancer. Meanwhile, Hawthorne performed in African American theater. The two met in 1916 when Hawthorne was in the chorus of the Smart Set show...
.
In the mid 1920s he was recommended by Cow Cow Davenport
Cow Cow Davenport
Charles Edward "Cow Cow" Davenport was an American boogie woogie piano player. He also played the organ and sang.-Career:...
to J. Mayo Williams
J. Mayo Williams
Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams was a pioneering African-American producer of recorded blues music. Ink Williams earned his nickname by his ability to get the signatures of talented African-American musicians on recording contracts...
at Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
, and in 1928 he moved, with his wife and young son, to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
to record. For a time he, Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons
Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...
, and Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis
Meade Lux Lewis was a American pianist and composer, noted for his work in the boogie-woogie style. His best known work, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", has been recorded in various contexts, often in a big band arrangement...
lived in the same rooming house.
On 29 December 1928 he recorded his influential "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," one of the first "boogie woogie" style recordings to make a hit, and which cemented the name for the style. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a house-rent party
Rent party
A rent party is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music...
in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. Smith was the first ever to direct "the girl with the red dress on" to "not move a peg" until told to "shake that thing" and "mess around".
Smith was scheduled to make another recording session for Vocalion in 1929, but died from a gunshot wound in a dance-hall fight in Chicago the day before the session. Sources differ as to whether he was the intended recipient of the bullet. "I saw Pinetop spit blood" was the famous headline
Headline
The headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it.It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a...
in Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
magazine.
No photographs of Smith are known to exist.
Influence
Smith was acknowledged by other boogie woogie pianists such as Albert AmmonsAlbert Ammons
Albert Ammons was an American pianist. Ammons was a player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s into the mid 1940s.-Life and career:...
and Pete Johnson
Pete Johnson
Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.Journalist Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most...
as a key influence, and he gained posthumous fame when "Boogie Woogie" was arranged for big band and recorded by Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
& His Orchestra in 1938. Although not immediately successful, "Boogie Woogie" was so popular during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
that it became Dorsey's best selling record, with over five million copies sold. Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
also recorded his version of the song.
From the 1950s, Joe Willie Perkins
Pinetop Perkins
Joseph William Perkins , known by the stage name Pinetop Perkins, was an American blues musician, specializing in piano music...
became universally known as "Pinetop Perkins" for his recording of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie". Perkins later became Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
' pianist and later, when in his nineties, recorded a song on his 2004 Ladies' Man album, which played on the by-then-common misconception that Perkins had himself written "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie".
Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
adapted "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" for his song "Mess Around", for which the authorship was credited to "A. Nugetre
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
", Ahmet Ertegun.
In 1975 the Bob Thiele Orchestra
Bob Thiele
Bob Thiele was an American record producer who worked on countless classic jazz albums and record labels.-Biography:...
recorded a modern jazz album called I Saw Pinetop Spit Blood that included a treatment of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" as well as the title song.
Gene Taylor
Gene Taylor (musician)
Gene Taylor is an American blues rock and boogie-woogie pianist.-Biography:Taylor began his musical training as a drummer at age eight but two years later he had picked up both the guitar and his initial piano skills from boogie-woogie pianist-neighbours...
recorded a version of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" on his eponymous 2003 album.
External links
- Clarence "Pine Top" Smith on redhotjazz.com with .ram files of his vintage recordings
- [ All Music article]
- Official website of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame