|
 |
Pinetop: Hopson 'brings me a whole lot of
memories'
|
| By: Emily Le Coz,
Staff Writer |
May 03,
2003 |
|
 |
Bluesman Pinetop Perkins relaxes on the porch of -
where else? - the Pinetop Perkins Shack at the Shack Up
Inn.
| Hopson
Commissary had the honor of hosting an early homecoming for
Mississippi bluesman Pinetop Perkins when the legendary pianist
showed up for an exceptional performance Thursday night.
|
Sitting in with Jimbo Mathis, former leader of the Squirrel
Nut Zippers, the 89-year-old blues great packed the plantation he
once called home with his self-taught style of music.
"I used to
live on this plantation," Perkins said. "I used to drive tractors
and pick cotton out here. It brings me a whole lot of memories to be
here 'cause I used to have fun right around here, driving tractors
and picking cotton. I would do everything with tractors: pick
cotton, pull corn, trash stuff - oh, boy."
The bluesman kicked
back on the faded, clapboard porch of the shack that bears his name
- the Pinetop Perkins Shack - and chain-smoked cigarettes. Between
puffs, the Belzoni native killed a little time by reliving a little
of the past in the bright sunshine of the morning before his special
performance.
"I ain't been here for a good while," he reflected.
Currently living in Laport, Ind., the man made famous by his hit
song Pinetop's Boogie said that Mississippi holds more than just
memories. It also holds his mother.
"My mother is buried around
Belzoni, but I don't know where she's buried at. I was overseas when
she died, playing in Italy or something at the time. I thought I
could catch them before they put her in the ground. I guess she
don't mind much, though."
With a penchant for whiskey but a soul
reserved for God, Perkins' mother split up with the bluesman's
father when Pinetop was "real young." After that, he said, he and
his mother went to live with the boy's grandmother.
"At 13, 14
years old, I left my grandmother and went to live with my father's
uncle Henry Perkins. My grandmother beat me up so bad, she knocked
me out. She was a meanie. My mother said to me 'Come back home,' and
I said, 'No way.' "
Growing up with his mother wasn't easy for
Perkins - "I came up the hard way," he says - but she did instill in
the man a sense of faith that he still carries with him
today.
"My daddy was a Baptist preacher, and my mother was a
Christian lady, but she loved to drink her whiskey," Perkins said
chuckling. "So, I don't play no blues on Sundays. I play the few
little church hymns on Sundays. But I don't play no blues - no, no,
sure don't.
"Playing solitaire, I don't play that on Sundays, I
don't go fishing on Sundays. No. I try to remember Sabbath day like
Momma told me: Remember Sabbath day and keep it holy. I try to do
that. Doing the best I can."
The man who played with Sonny Boy
Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, Earl Hooker and Muddy Waters - among
many others - also said that, despite his age, he still loves the
ladies.
"I love all ladies 'cause my mother was one. I love
women. Mmm," he said, his eyes lighting up as a playful grin toyed
with his lips.
Women have always played an important part in
Perkins' life. From Adelaine to Mickie to Sarah and the countless
others who crossed his path, women shaped Perkins just as Perkins
shaped the blues.
"Adelaine was my one-and-only wife. The others
were just common-law wives. There was a lady I stayed with a good
little while named Sarah - Saaaarahhh - but I wasn't married to her,
and we didn't get no kids. Thank God for that or she would of laid a
litter out."
Perkins does have four children, though, including a
set of twins by a lady he met while playing with Nighthawk.
It
was also a woman who cut short his guitar career by stabbing him in
the arm after her husband locked her in the bathroom of a bar for
more than two hours.
"I'll never forget her name; her name was
Mickie. She worked the high-brown follies on the Rabbit Foot Show.
Mickie got me tricky; I can't play like I used to.
"I can play
piano, but I can't play bass on the piano like I want to. This arm's
got me all mangled up. I play pretty good on the right hand, but I
have to have a bass man with me and let him do the bass part and I
do the other.
"Yeah, I used to have the bass rolling like thunder
on the piano."
Even with his left arm "mangled," Perkins still
manages to pack a venue. Hopson Commissary owner James Butler said
that Thursday night's concert drew more than 50 people, many of them
tourists.
|
| ©Clarksdale Press Register 2003
|
|
|
.gif){kind=spacer}
