Smith was born in
Troy, Alabama and raised in
Birmingham, Alabama. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees . In 1920 he moved to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the
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 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 to record. For a time he,
Albert Ammons, and
Meade Lux Lewis lived in the same rooming house.
On 29 December
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. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a
house-rent party in
St. Louis, Missouri. Pinetop was the first ever to direct "the girl with the red dress on" to "not move a peg" until told to "shake that thing" and "mess around".
Pinetop 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. Sources differ as to whether he was the intended recipient of the bullet. "I saw Pinetop spit blood" was the famous
headline in
Down Beat magazine.
No photographs of Smith are known to exist.
