Pine Top Smith

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Pine Top Smith · Clarence Pinetop Smith was born in Alabama in 1904, the son of Sam and Molly Smith. He got his nickname as a child because he liked climbing trees. As a teenager he moved with his family to Birmingham, and in 1920 he went to Pittsburgh. There he worked as an entertainer and toured the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit as a singer, comedian and pianist. For a time he accompanied Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie.

Music and breakthrough

In 1928 Smith moved with his wife and little son to Chicago to record. Cow Cow Davenport had recommended him to Vocalion Records. For a time he lived in the same boarding house as Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, two other pianists in the same style. On 29 December 1928 he recorded Pine Top's Boogie Woogie. It became a hit and gave the style its name. It was also the first record with the words boogie woogie in the title. During the recording Smith talks about the piece and tells you how to dance to it. He said he had made it up at a house party in St. Louis to pay the rent.

Influence

The pianist plays a rhythmically rolling pattern in the left hand, with striking breaks that come from ragtime and point forward to rock 'n' roll. Smith died in 1929, at the age of twenty-four. His record is thus one of the most important examples of boogie-woogie, and the style lived on in the pianists who came after him, such as Ammons, Lewis and Pete Johnson.

Listening

• 
  Pine Top's Boogie Woogie · Pine Top Smith, 1928
  Apple Music ↗

Mentioned in other articles

• Boogie-woogie GenrePine Top Smith recorded Pine Top's Boogie Woogie in 1928; in the late 1930s the style became a craze, and the rolling left hand returned in rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll.