Dream Town Media

Yesterday, music lost the great boogie woogie blues piano man, Pinetop Perkins.  It caused me to reminisce a bit about one of my visits to Austin when we stayed downtown near Town Lake.  We spent the whole trip walking back and forth to the bars on 6th Street. Back theen the bar or the corner of Neches and 6th used to be named for the proprietor, Nuno. He was a huge supporter of live music and afforded anyone the opportunity to jam in the famous Austin neighborhood atleast 2-3 nights a week. He’d have a house band in there and anyone who wanted to sit in and play some blues or rock could.  Generally, the guys in there were so nice that they’d even share their ax.  That’s where I met Grammy legend, Pinetop Perkins.

Pinetop Perkins

Mr. Perkins was said to be the last of his generation of Mississippi Delta Blues artists. Pinetop recorded with Sam Phillips at Sun Records in 1928, had a cameo in the Blues Brothers movie and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. That was around the time I met him.

We really wanted to have the experience of playing in Austin and add it to our list of places 7 Million Jigawatts performed. At the time, the band wasn’t traveling very much. It was just too expensive to get everyone down there when we didn’t have a paying gig.  One Sunday night, we were wandering around looking for a band to sit in with.   We walked in to Nuno’s after their street barker coerced us in the club with promises of cheap drinks, good music and even a jam later that night.   So in we went.

The first band was just wrapping up and this little old guy was sitting at a table that had “Reserved For Mr. Pinetop Perkins” written on it. I thought he was particularly cute with his fedora tipped to the side. I was a bit curious about who exactly he was. It looked like he had seen some travel and had quite a few good stories to tell. At the time, they hadn’t given Pinetop Perkins the Grammy yet and I hadn’t seen him on tv in any major capacity. Although I follow blues, I really wasn’t into it deep enough to realize who the guy sitting at that table was. I smiled at him and asked about his albums that were sitting in a duffle bag for sale at his feet. They were only $10 and I thought it would be worth the gamble to take a listen. So we picked up the one that he recommended. He was very nice and friendly. We chatted for a few moments about music and he offered to sign the cd. So, I opened the packaging and took out the cover art. He had a fat permanent marker and I could see that he was struggling a bit with his signature. He smiled none the less and blew on the ink to dry it before handing over the signed and dated cover art.

After a few more moments a young man came in, shook Nuno’s hand and started packing Pinetop Perkins up. First he piled the remaining cd’s and merchandise off the table and back into the bag. I guess it must have been a son, nephew or grandson. Later when we were talking to Nuno, he said that Pinetop Perkins lived in the Austin area along with most of his family and he had been a featured Sunday afternoon performer at the venue for years. Nuno also filled me in on all of the achievements of Pinetop Perkins career and what a real blessing it was to have met him for even a brief moment.

Funny thing is, I didn’t get to hear him play that day…. or any other day that I have been back to Austin. I listened to the album on a cross country trip recently. I really understand what a true gem Pinetop Perkins was and how fortunate I was to have met him. I thought a couple times to go back to try to catch him, but our timing was never good. Now Nuno’s is called something else and Pinetop Perkins passed away on March 21, 2011. May he rest in peace. God bless.

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