Early jazz and blues pianist, died tragically young in 1929, shortly after recording one of boogie woogie's first hits.
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Clarence Smith. Born: June 11, 1904 in Orion near Troy, Pike County, Alabama. Died: March 15, 1929 in Chicago, Illinois.The youngest of seven children, Smith grew up in Troy and later in Birmingham, Alabama, where he became familiar with the local blues piano style. Around 1920, he moved to PIttsburgh, Pennsylvania. There, he became acquainted with Ma Rainey who performed in vaudeville with her husband as Ma and Pa Rainey. Smith became their piano accompanist on the T.O.B.A. circuit, a Black vaudeville circuit, later also performing with Butterbeans & Susie and Grant & Wilson. It may have been during this time that Smith acquired the nickname "Pinetop", a Southern slang term for a popular kind of bootleg whiskey. In Summer 1928, Smith moved to Chicago with his wife Sarah (whom he had married in 1924) and their two children. They lived on South Parkway not far from Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis. In December 1928 and January 1929, at the recommendation of pianist and talent scout Cow Cow Davenport, record executive J. Mayo Williams organized three recording sessions for Smith with the Vocalion label that resulted in eight released titles (and three variant takes). One of the songs that Smith recorded on December 29, 1928 was "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie." This was the first time that the term "Boogie Woogie" appeared on a record, and it soon became associated with the insistent eight-to-the-bar bass that Smith plays on this record. When Boogie Woogie became a mainstream phenomenon in 1938, Tommy Dorsey recorded a version of "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" that became his greatest hit, selling more than 5 million records.
"Pinetop" Smith himself died too early to experience more than posthumous fame. On March 15, 1929, two months after his last Vocalion session, he was shot in the chest by a bullet that someone fired to stop a brawl in a dance hall. He was 24 years old. No photographs of "Pinetop" Smith are known to exist.
More detail:
Clarence "Pinetop" Smith (b. June 11, 1904 in Pike County, Al, d. March 15, 1929 in Chicago, IL) was a boogie-woogie style blues pianist. His hit tune "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "breaks" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of rock and roll. 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.
The son of Sam and Molly Smith, Clarence "Pinetop" Smith was born on June 11, 1904, in Pike County, Alabama. Sources disagree on the exact place of his birth with some stating he was born in Troy, Alabama and others stating he was born in Orion, Alabama just north of Troy. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama the Smith family lived in Orion at the time of Clarence's birth and they moved to Troy not long after he was born. He received his nickname of "Pinetop" as a child from his liking for climbing trees. As a teenager he moved with his family to Birmingham, Alabama. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (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 blues 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, 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 magazine in 1939.
Smith died in Chicago on March 15, 1929. In 2014 the Killer Blues Headstone Project placed a headstone for him at Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
Smith was acknowledged by other boogie-woogie pianists such as Albert Ammons 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 (recorded January 21, 1946, with Lionel Hampton'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. 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."
Smith was a posthumous 1991 inductee of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame.
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By Jason Ankeny
One of the driving forces behind the advent of boogie-woogie piano, Clarence "Pine Top" Smith ranks among the most influential blues figures of the 1920s. Born January 11, 1904, in Troy, AL, he was raised in nearby Birmingham; a self-taught player, he began performing at area house parties while in his mid-teens, and after relocating to Pittsburgh accompanied Ma Rainey and Butterbeans & Susie. On the advice of fellow pianist Cow Cow Davenport -- himself a seminal figure in boogie-woogie's development -- Smith relocated to Chicago in 1928, where he lived in the same apartment house as Meade "Lux" Lewis and Albert Ammons, conditions that resulted in frequent all-night jam sessions; there, he also made a name for himself on the city's house-rent party and club circuits. While boogie-woogie's exact origins are a mystery, Smith's energetic "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" (cut during his first Vocalion label sessions in 1928) marked the first known use of the phrase on record, and its lyrics -- a cry of "Hold it now/Stop/Boogie Woogie!" -- became the template for any number of subsequent piano tunes. Another recording session followed in early 1929, but just weeks later, on March 15, Smith's bright career came to an abrupt halt when he was shot and killed by a stray bullet during a dancehall fracas; he was just 25 at the time of his death, leaving behind a legacy of only 11 recorded tracks.
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By Encyclopedia of Alabama
Clarence "Pine Top" Smith (1904-1929) of Orion, Pike County, was an internationally acclaimed blues pianist who is cited as one of the originators of modern "boogie-woogie" music—an upbeat mix of blues, jazz, and ragtime that is also sometimes known as "barrelhouse music." His 1928 release, "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," is believed to be the first instance of the use of the phrase "boogie woogie" in a recorded song and was a major and influential hit. He was also known for his comedic, witty, and lyrical banter that he famously "rapped" over the driving rhythms of his piano playing, and for this he is also considered by some to be one of the founding fathers of rap. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991.
Smith was born in January or June of 1904 in the tiny community of Orion, north of Troy, Pike County, to Sam and Molly Smith; he was one of five children. At the time of his birth, most African Americans in the region worked as sharecroppers, and the Smiths likely did as well. The family moved to Troy soon after his birth. His nickname "Pine Top" is believed to have originated from his childhood love of climbing trees.
Little is known about his early years, but it is likely that Smith had his first exposure to the piano in a local church and had his first exposure to blues music on front porches and in small bars and clubs known as juke joints. By his early teens, Smith was already playing house parties in the Troy area. At some point, he, and perhaps the family, moved to Birmingham, Jefferson County, which was then a regular destination for traveling blues shows. He was based there for several years, playing in local venues. He connected with fellow blues musicians in Birmingham, including barrelhouse piano player Robert McCoy of Aliceville, Pickens County. With a home base in Birmingham, he soon began to travel and perform. As a teenager, Smith was credited as a member of the "Mattie Dorsey's Big Four" show in an appearance in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1919.
Smith began performing at the dawn of the "Roaring Twenties" and the "Jazz Age," when new types of music generated a craze for big bands and wild dancing. Smith and other solo piano players had to compete with noisy crowds in southern beer halls (sometimes called "barrelhouses"), house parties, turpentine camps, brothels, theaters, and juke joints to win the approval of the dance-crazy public. In these environments, he and similar musicians blended ragtime, sacred, jazz, and blues music into the boogie-woogie style that traveled with the musicians who migrated to the northern cities. Solo blues musicians like Smith were also under pressure to carry the show alone and had to be all-around entertainers. Smith found he could add excitement to his performance by "rapping" to the audience, encouraging the dancers, and giving instructions, like calling "the girl with the red dress on" to "shake that thing" and "mess around."
By age 16, Smith (and perhaps his family as well) had joined the thousands of African Americans who left the South and headed north as part of the Great Migration. He arrived in Pittsburgh, which had a renowned thriving jazz and blues scene and a burgeoning black urban middle class that supported top-notch entertainment. He soon found regular work in the lively nightclubs, dance ballrooms, and theaters of the Hill district—the heart of the city's night life—where he was exposed to the abundant talent playing in these venues.
Smith also gained experience on the southern traveling roadshow circuit, performing with acts such as the Raymond Brothers, the Whitman Sisters, and Matt Dorsey's Pickaninnies. The renowned Wiregrass native Gertrude "Ma" Rainey had also relocated to Pittsburgh and hired Smith to join her entourage of performers. They toured on the vaudeville Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) theater and tent show circuit, where he performed as a piano player, singer, tap dancer, and comedian. As his reputation grew, he toured with other prestigious acts including Birmingham native Coot Grant and her husband Wesley "Kid" Wilson and Butterbeans and Susie. From Pittsburgh, he played all over the South, including in Atlanta, Memphis, and New Orleans on the TOBA circuit. He also is known to have played in Detroit and lived for short periods in St. Louis and Omaha, Nebraska, where he played clubs and "rent" parties. He returned to Pittsburgh between tours, performing in local clubs and cabarets, and on one trip in 1924 he met Sarah Horton of Charlotte, North Carolina. They married on October 11, 1924, and would have two children.
Sometime after his marriage, Smith met Charles Edward "Cow Cow" Davenport, a veteran piano player from Anniston, Calhoun County, who had toured extensively and was working as a talent scout for Brunswick/Vocalion Records based in New York and Chicago. Davenport was very impressed with Smith and is quoted as saying "Boy, look here, you have got a mean boogie-woogie." There is great debate among music historians as to who first used the term "boogie-woogie," with Davenport claiming he brought the expression with him from Alabama. On Davenport's recommendation, and in hopes of recording, Smith moved his wife and son, Clarence Jr., in the summer of 1928 to Chicago, where they shared a rooming-house with piano players Albert Ammons and Meade "Lux" Lewis.
Smith's recording sessions in early December were disappointing. But he was gaining notoriety performing at Chicago rent parties and speakeasies and a regular performance at the Forestville Tavern that was frequented by visiting musicians, including Jelly Roll Morton (born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe), Tampa Red (born Hudson Woodbridge), and Earl Hines. Smith returned later in the month to record "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" and struck gold. This was the first pure boogie-woogie barrelhouse music to be recorded, and two months later, it was a major hit. In January 1929, he returned and recorded six more songs, including "Pine Top Blues," "I'm Sober Now," and "Jump Steady Blues." On March 13, 1929, Smith recorded a ninth song that was never released, and he was scheduled to return to the studio to record the next day again. He had little chance to enjoy his success or fulfill a promising career.
On the night of March 14, Smith left home to rehearse with Ernest Wallace. Walking home, Smith stopped in the Masonic Adams Lodge Hall to hear music and joined in the dancing. A fight broke, and Smith was accidentally shot in the scuffle. He was taken to the hospital but never regained consciousness. He died at 1:18 a.m., leaving behind his wife, two children, and 11 recordings.
Smith is cited as one of the most influential musicians of the 1920s, and his "Pine Top Blues" is considered a groundbreaking and seminal recording. Many musicians have covered his classic of the boogie-woogie repertoire over the years, and the style became a major craze in the 1930s and 1940s. The song was a major hit for Cleo Brown in 1935 and for Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra in 1938, eventually selling more than five million copies. Bing Crosby and Lionel Hampton also recorded versions of the song. Joe Willie Perkins recorded "Pine Top's Boogie" in 1950 and became so associated with the song that he was later known as "Pinetop" Perkins. As acoustic, then electric, guitar players emulated the boogie-woogie rhythm, it became a crucial component in the birth of rock and roll. In 1967, a memorial statue designed by Claes Oldenburg was erected near the site of his death. Smith was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991. One of his talking recordings, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," was featured on a 2000 Yazoo Records compilation, The Roots of Rap: Classic Recordings from the 1920s and 30s.
Smith was buried in Restvale Cemetery near Chicago alongside many other blues greats, including Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield), Earl Hooker, and Magic Sam (born Samuel Gene Maghett). As of 2021, his grave remains unmarked and there are no known photographs of him.