How Long Blues

The Oldest Grammy Winner

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Pinetop Perkins is captured on film in Clarksdale, Mississippi playing the Leroy Carr piano classic “How Long Blues” during one of his last performances in 2009 at the age of 95.

Joseph “Pinetop” Perkins career began as a guitarist but an injury to the tendons in his left arm rendered him no longer able to play the instrument. After switching to the piano he appeared on radio programs with Robert Nighthawk and Sonny Boy Williamson II throughout the 1940’s. As had many before him Pinetop relocated to Chicago, but stayed out of music until 1968 when Earl Hooker convinced him to make records.

Shortly before his March 2011 death at the age of 97, Pinetop won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album for “Joined at the Hip” becoming the oldest-ever Grammy winner.

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