PINETOP PERKINS HOMECOMING CELEBRATION TO BENEFIT PINETOP PERKINS FOUNDATION
OCTOBER 10, 2010 2-7pm
Hopson’s Plantation
$10 donation
The 11th annual Pinetop Perkins Homecoming Celebration will take place on Sunday, October 10th at Hopson’s Commissary and the Shack Up Inn from 2 to 7pm. It is held each year on the site of the old Hopson’s Plantation. In the late 30s and early 40s, Hopsons was one of the first farms testing the newly invented cotton picking machine and Joe Willie Pinetop Perkins was their ace tractor driver. He was so good, in fact, that he had a deferment during the war to work for Mr. Hopson. This freed Pinetop to join the King Biscuit Boys on the radio in Helena and show a young precocious boy named Ike Turner how to play the piano.
Sixty years later the folks at the Shack Up Inn and Hopson’s Commissary welcomed back Pinetop naming a shack in his honor and hosting the first homecoming event. Occupying three stages, this year’s event will also be a benefit for the newly formed Pinetop Perkins Foundation. Its mission is to provide encouragement and support for youth and young people at the beginning of their musical career; and help provide care and safety for elderly musicians at the twilight of their career.
Headliners slated to perform at the Homecoming this year include Bob Margolin, Willie ‘Big Eyes” Smith and his band on the Commissary stage; Cedric Burnside and Lighting Malcolm in the Juke Joint Chapel; and Blue Mother Tupelo on the Commissary Acoustic Stage. In keeping with the mission of the Foundation, the Homecoming also features an up-and-coming youth group.
This year showcases the very talented Peterson Brothers 11 and 13 year-old blues phenoms from Bastrop Texas. Also as in previous years, the celebration will feature a number of surprise guests on all three stages.