"Lyrics"
Soundclips
 "Mama Where Did You Stay Last Night"
"My Baby Left Me This Morning"
"Thousand Woman Blues"
"Weeping Willow"
Pinkney Anderson was a lifelong musician and medicine show performer whose repertoire
included blues, ballads, rags, and other songster material. Born in Laurens,
South Carolina, in 1901, Pink moved to Greenville with his family when he was
very young, then on to Spartanburg. As a child, Pink sang and danced for tips
on the street. He learned the rudiments of guitar from an older neighbor, who taught him to play slide songs in open tuning (songs like John Henry, etc). In 1917, Anderson joined Dr. Kerr's Medicine Show, with whom he would stay for thirty years. Initially, Pink signed on as a dancer and comedian, but in 1918, he started to learn guitar from Simeon Dooley, a blind singer from Georgia who had settled in the Spartanburg area. Dooley's former partner (a man that Pink remembered only as ``Henry'') had left town, so Pink and Simmie hooked up. Dooley taught Pink to play the guitar, often using switches on Pink's hands if Pink messed up. The two played on the streets and at parties when Pink wasn't on the road with Dr. Kerr. Dooley only played the medicine shows a few times, possibly because he disliked travel, but maybe because so few would hire a blind man in spite of Dooley's obvious talents. According to Pink, most medicine shows didn't want Dooley because of the special attention that the blind required. In the mid-20s, Pink would play from time to time with a string band which had earlier
featured the father and older brother of Carl Martin.
Anderson played guitar with
this loose collection of local players until the mid-30s, whenever he wasn't
with Kerr's Medicine Show or performing with Dooley. Pink and Simmie's reputation
grew to the point that in April 1928, they recorded four songs for a Columbia
field recording unit in Atlanta. The four songs are all within the medicine
show/songster tradition, and Columbia released two on a record that year and
the other two a year later, with Pink and Simmie both named on all labels.
The first record sold fairly well, enough to have a second pressing made,
and Columbia wanted Pink to return to Atlanta the following year. They weren't
interested in re-recording Dooley, supposedly because they didn't like his voice.
Pink refused to go without his partner and continued to play around the Spartanburg
area and tour with Kerr's medicine show until it shut down in 1945. Along the
way he met harmonica player Peg Leg Sam, teaching the younger man about blues,
medicine shows, etc. After Kerr retired, Pink's skill and reputation allowed him
to switch to Big Chief Thundercould's Show, with whom Anderson toured until his
retirement.
In 1950, Pink was performing at the Virginia State Fair in
Charlottesville when he was recorded by Paul Clayton. He teamed up with
Charles ``Baby'' Tate in 1954 and worked around Spartanburg in a trio with
harmonica player Keg Shorty Bell and washboard player Charley ``Chilly Willy'' Williams. Heart problems in 1957 forced him to retire from touring. After Dooley passed away in 1961, Pink played only occaisionally around town with Baby Tate. It was then that Sam Charters found him and recorded him in 1962. Pink made three albums for Charters: one of blues, one ballads, and one of songs from the medicine shows. These recordings led to some higher-paying gigs until a stroke in 1964 forced him to stop playing, though he still bootlegged and ran a crap game in his house before he passed away in 1974.
Pinkney Anderson, like so many Piedmont bluesmen, was as much songster as bluesman.
His repertoire was very broad and very deep, a necessity of working medicine shows
where you had to be able to play anything that might draw a crowd. Though he is
remembered today primarily as one of the bluesmen after whom Sid Barret named his
British art rock band, Anderson was a great bluesman and entertainer.
Much of
Anderson's blues was influenced by the records of Blind Boy Fuller. Though he
was recorded only sparingly in his life, Anderson must have been a great
guitarist at his peak. When Charters recorded him, Pink was past his prime but
still a great player and singer, a man who obviously knew how to deliver the goods.
Peg Leg Sam put it best when he told Bruce Bastin ``Pink had me playing with my
tongue hanging out like a mule plowing corn.
source. http://www.io.com/
~tbone1/blues/ECblz/pinkan.html
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