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{{Short description|American boogie-woogie pianist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2024}}
{{Infobox musical artist | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians -->
| name = Pinetop Smith
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| background = solo_singer
| birth_name = Clarence Smith
| alias = "Pine Top" or "Pinetop" Smith
| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|6|11}}
| birth_place = [[Troy, Alabama]], U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1929|3|15|1904|6|11}}
| death_place = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], U.S.
| instrument = {{hlist|Piano, |vocals}}
| genre = {{hlist|[[Boogie-woogie]], |[[blues]]}}
| occupation = {{hlist|Musician, |comedian}}
| years_active = c.{{circa}} 1920–1929
| label = [[Vocalion Records|Vocalion]]
| associated_acts = {{ubl|[[Ma Rainey]]|[[Albert Ammons]]|[[Meade Lux Lewis]]|[[Cow Cow Davenport]]}}
}}
'''Clarence "Pinetop" Smith''' (June 11, 1904 &ndash; March 15, 1929), better known as '''Pinetop Smith''' or '''Pine Top Smith''',<ref name="Trail"/> was an American [[boogie-woogie]] style [[blues]] pianist. His [[hit record|hit]] tune "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "[[break (music)|break]]s" that were an essential ingredient of [[ragtime]] music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of [[rock &and roll]].<ref name="Music"/> 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.
 
==Career==
Smith was born to an African American family in [[Troy, Alabama]] and raised in [[Birmingham, Alabama]].<ref name="Trail"/> He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees.<ref name="silvester">{{cite book |first=Peter J. |last=Silvester |title=The Story of Boogie-Woogie: A Left Hand Like God |url=https://archive.org/details/storyboogiewoogi00silv |url-access=limited |year=1989 |publisher=[[Scarecrow Press]] |pages=[https://archive.org/details/storyboogiewoogi00silv/page/n80 66]–73 |isbn=978-0810869240}}</ref> In 1920 he moved to [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]],<ref name="edwards">{{cite journal |last=Edwards |first=James |title=Innovators: Pine Top Smith |journal=Western Pennsylvania History |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=6–7 |publisher=[[Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania]] |date= Fall 2007 |issn=1525-4755}}</ref> 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]]<ref name="Trail"/> 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.<ref name="Trail"/> For a time he, [[Albert Ammons]], and [[Meade Lux Lewis]] lived in the same rooming house.<ref name="Devil">{{cite book|title=The Devil's Music|author=Giles Oakley|publisher=[[Da Capo Press]]|page=159/160|isbn=978-0-306-80743-5|date=1997|url=https://archive.org/details/devilsmusichisto00oakl_0|url-access=limited}}</ref>
 
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.<ref name="Devil"/> It was also the first recording to have the phrase 'boogie woogie' in the song's title.<ref>{{cite book|title=Deep Blues|author=Robert Palmer|year=1981|authorlink=Robert Palmer (American writer)|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/deepblues00palm/page/131 131]|isbn=978-0-14-006223-6|url=https://archive.org/details/deepblues00palm/page/131}}</ref> Smith talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number.<ref name="Music">{{cite book
| first= Paul
| last= Du Noyer
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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.<ref name="Trail">{{cite web |url=http://www.thebluestrail.com/artists/mus_cs.htm |title=Clarence Pinetop Smith |website=The Blues Trail |access-date=August 22, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Devil"/> 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.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=I Saw Pinetop Spit Blood and Fall: The Life and Death of Clarence Smith, Creator of Boogie-Woogie |first=Sharon |last=Pease |magazine=[[Down Beat]] |volume=6 |number=10 |page=4 |date=October 1, 1939 |issn=0012-5768}}</ref>
 
No photographs of Smith are known to exist.<ref name="silvester"/>
Smith also appeared as a trumpet on numerous occasions of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s jazz and swing era albums, from [[Ben Webster]], [[Blanche Calloway]], [[Cab Calloway]], [[Tiny Stewart]] and a second time he appeared as a brass player was playing trombone on an unknown specific recording from a 1944-1945 album that was released into modern day society in 1994.<ref>{{Cite web |url= https://www.allmusic.com/artist/pinetop-smith-mn0000289045/credits |title=allmusic.com |accessdate=May 28, 2022}}</ref>
 
==78 rpm singles - Vocalion Records==
{{Unreferenced section|date=November 2020}}
{| class="wikitable"
|1245
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|-
|1245
|"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie"<ref name=Vocalion>{{Cite web |title=Vocalion 78rpm numerical listing discography: 1000 - 1499 race series |url=https://www.78discography.com/VOC1000.htm |access-date=2022-06-16 |website=www.78discography.com}}</ref>
|"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie"
|December 29, 1928
|-
|1256
|"Big Boy They Can't Do That"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 15, 1929
|-
|1256
|"[[Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out]]"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 15, 1929
|-
|1266
|"I'm Sober Now"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 14, 1929
|-
|1266
|"I Got More Sense Than That"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 14, 1929
|-
|1298
|"Jump Steady Blues"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 15, 1929
|-
|1298
|"Now I Ain't Got Nothing At All"<ref name=Vocalion/>
|January 15, 1929
|}
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[[Gene Taylor (pianist)|Gene Taylor]] recorded a version of "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" on his eponymous 2003 album.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.answers.com/topic/gene-taylor-2003-album-by-gene-taylor?cat=entertainment|title=Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions|work=Answers.com|access-date=19 January 2015}}</ref>
 
[[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’sthere'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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.publicaddress.us/downloads/oldenburg.pdf|title=The Poetry of Scale|publisher=Publicaddress.us|access-date=19 January 2015}}</ref>
 
==Awards and honors==
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*{{Discogs artist|613401-Clarence-Pinetop-Smith}}
*[https://syncopatedtimes.com/pine-top-smith-1904-1929/ Pinetop Smith] solo discography on Red Hot Jazz Archive
*[https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/blues/pine-top-smith Pinetop Smith] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926004710/https://sites.google.com/site/pittsburghmusichistory/pittsburgh-music-story/blues/pine-top-smith |date=September 26, 2013 }} at Pittsburgh Music History
 
{{Authority control}}
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[[Category:American male pianists]]
[[Category:American street performers]]
[[Category:VaudevilleAmerican vaudeville performers]]
[[Category:Musicians from Pittsburgh]]
[[Category:Vocalion Records artists]]
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[[Category:20th-century American male musicians]]
[[Category:20th-century African-American musicians]]
[[Category:Burials at Restvale Cemetery]]
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