Clarence Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929), better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith, was an American boogie-woogie style

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

pianist. His hit tune "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic " breaks" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of

rock & roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...

. The song was also the first known use of the term "boogie woogie" on a record, and cemented that term as the moniker for the genre.

Career

Smith was born to an African American family in Troy, Alabama 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

Theatre Owners Booking Association Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, G ...

(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

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 Albert Clifton Ammons (March 1, 1907 – December 2, 1949) was an American pianist and player of boogie-woogie, a blues style popular from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. Life and career Ammons was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were pi ...

, and Meade Lux Lewis lived in the same rooming house. On December 29, 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. It was also the first recording to have the phrase 'boogie woogie' in the song's title. Smith 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". Similar lyrics are heard in many later songs, including " Mess Around" and " What'd I Say" by Ray Charles. 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 a headline in ''

DownBeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' magazine in 1939. No photographs of Smith are known to exist.

78 rpm singles - Vocalion Records

Influence

Smith was acknowledged by other boogie-woogie pianists such as

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 and 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 Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, musician and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. He was a ...

(recorded January 21, 1946 with

Lionel Hampton Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles M ...

's Orchestra) and Count Basie also issued their versions 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's pianist. When he was in his nineties, he recorded a song on his 2004 album ''Ladies' Man'', which played on the by-then common misconception that he had 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 (, Turkish spelling: Ahmet Ertegün; ; – December 14, 2006) was a Turkish-American businessman, songwriter, record executive and philanthropist. Ertegun was the co-founder and president of Atlantic Records. He discovered and ch ...

", Ahmet Ertegun. In 1975, the Bob Thiele Orchestra recorded a modern jazz album called ''I Saw Pinetop Spit Blood'', which 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. Claes Oldenburg, the pop artist, proposed a Pinetop Smith Monument in his book ''Proposals for Monuments and Buildings 1965–69''. Oldenburg described the monument as "a wire extending the length of North Avenue, west from Clark Street, along which at intervals runs an electric impulse colored blue so that there’s one blue line as far as the eye can see. Pinetop Smith invented boogie woogie blues at the corner of North and Larrabee, where he finally was murdered: the electric wire is 'blue' and dangerous."

Awards and honors

Smith was a posthumous 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.

References

External links

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Pinetop Smith
solo discography on Red Hot Jazz Archive
Pinetop Smith
at Pittsburgh Music History {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Pinetop 1904 births 1929 deaths People from Troy, Alabama African-American pianists Boogie-woogie pianists American blues pianists American male pianists American street performers Vaudeville performers Musicians from Pittsburgh Vocalion Records artists Deaths by firearm in Illinois Murdered African-American people American murder victims 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century African-American musicians