Happy birthday on Wednesday to Joseph William 'Pinetop' Perkins, about to turn 97 and still sitting steady on his piano stool.
Perkins is a blues legend: a member for more than a decade of the Muddy Waters Band, he later formed the Legendary Blues Band with other alumni of the Waters ensemble, including drummer Willie 'Big Eyes' Smith.
The men forged an enduring friendship, the latest fruit of which is a duo album on Telarc, Joined at the Hip. Smith, a spring chicken at 74, leaves the drumming mostly to his son, Kenny, to concentrate on vocals and his second instrument, the blues harmonica. Guitarists John Primer and 'Little Frank' Krakowski and bass guitarist Bob Stroger complete the band.
Handling production is Michael Freeman who also produced 2008's star-studded Pinetop Perkins and Friends which featured among other guests B.B. King and Eric Clapton, as well as all the musicians here, other than Primer. Freeman came up with the album's title.
Perkins, who got his nickname from his fondness for performing the famous piano blues Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, which was first recorded by Pinetop Smith, is one of the few men left alive who was playing Mississippi Delta blues in its 1930s heyday and was also around for the birth of electric Chicago blues in the 1940s.
The choice of cover tunes here reflects that heritage. There is one from each of the Sonny Boy Williamsons - John Lee 'Sonny Boy' Williamson and his namesake 'Sonny Boy' Williamson II (real name Alex 'Rice' Miller - plus Big Bill Broonzy's I Feel So Good, Melvin 'Lil' Son' Jackson's Gambling Blues, and Thomas Dorsey's best-known gospel song, Take My Hand, Precious Lord.
Most of the others are originals, including Perkins' Grindin' Man, with the rest by Smith. The performances are strong and there is no hint in Perkins' piano work that the player is just three years short of a century.