Pinetop Perkins, one of the last of the first generation of Mississippi Delta blues players and an influential blues pianist who performed with Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and Muddy Waters, has died at the age of 97.

In his lifetime, Perkins, who last month became the oldest living artist to win a Grammy when he snagged one for best traditional blues album, performed with some of the founders of Southern blues music.

Though he quit music for nearly three decades, Perkins returned to performing during the folk and blues revival of the 1960s, when his early recordings for Williamson's influential and popular King Buscuit Time radio hour caught on with a new generation of blues fans.

Read more about Perkins over at The Times' Afterword blog.

-- Randall Roberts