TCB
By Christopher Gray, Fri., Jan. 21, 2005
Pinetop's Boogie Woogie
Important things to know about 2005 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and Traditional Blues Album nominee Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins: He's 91 years old. His ivory-tickling fingers are as long and slender as ballpoint pens. He just relocated from LaPorte, Ind., to a modest South Austin apartment a few weeks back, where longtime friend Clifford Antone can keep an eye on him. Hes still got an eye (and ear) for the ladies, as heard on his Grammy-nominated 2004 M.C. release, Ladies Man. Hes booked at NYCs Lincoln Center on Jan. 28 and has a letter from former President Bill Clinton on White House stationery, congratulating him for being named a 2000 NEA National Heritage Fellow. He appeared in The Blues Brothers alongside John Lee Hooker. The Belzoni, Miss., native loves to fish, play solitaire, and sing the blues, but he wont do any of them on Sunday, hoping "the good Lord will forgive me for the other things I do." Perkins has hosted radio programs with Robert Nighthawk, Sonny Boy Williamson, and B.B. King, but he says his biggest influence was Muddy Waters, with whom he played off and on for 30 years. "That Muddy Waters could sing some stuff for you," he affirms. "Thats where I got my stuff, from listening to him."
Off the Rack
Those looking to purchase Butthole Surfers and … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead merchandise online will soon do so via local printing merchants Bearded Lady. The Trail of Dead store will be up in time for Tuesday's release of second Interscope LP Worlds Apart, says Bearded Ladys Josh Chalmers, with the Surfers who haven't had an online store in more than a year following by the end of the month. Both bands were dissatisfied with the impersonal nature of their previous companies and approached Bearded Lady separately. Members of both bands have been friends with Chalmers and partner J.D. Fanning for years, so enlisting the duo was a logical move. "They're trying to make sure they stay local," nods Chalmers. Bearded Lady will print and store all the T-shirts, posters, stickers, LPs, CDs, and 7-inches up for sale; Chalmers says the arrangement amounts to a crash course in Music Biz 101. All the number-crunching, the Oh, Beast! bassist admits, "makes me realize I dont ever want to be in a band that popular."
