Personalities | Pine Top Smith | Twenties | Jazz & Blues

(Piano, vocals, 1904–29)

A seminal figure in the development of boogie-woogie piano, self-taught Clarence ‘Pine Top’ Smith was raised in Birmingham, Alabama and worked the southern club and vaudeville circuit during the early 1920s. In 1928 he relocated to Chicago, where he roomed with fellow boogie-woogie piano pioneers Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis and Albert Ammons. Smith recorded his signature ‘Pine Top’s Boogie-Woogie’ for Vocalion in 1928. The following year he was shot in a Chicago dance hall and died aged just 25.

Styles & Forms | Twenties | Jazz & Blues
Personalities | Trixie Smith | Twenties | Jazz & Blues

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

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