Dr. Patricia Morgan has been involved with the blues community since her early 1980s work with local musicians, venues, and festivals in the San Francisco Bay area. Pat began working with Pinetop Perkins in 1996 during a difficult time in his life. Within a year, Pat was able to turn his life around. Since that time, under Morgan’s guidance Pinetop has received six Grammy nominations. In 2000 he received the National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship Award, and he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and won a Grammy in 2008. Ten years ago, Morgan also created the Pinetop Perkins Homecoming Jam at Hopson’s Plantation in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Recently Morgan started the Pinetop Perkins Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping young musicians at the beginning of their careers and helping older musicians with respite care at the end of their careers. Since 2005, Morgan has been doing the same job for Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith, helping him transition successfully from drums to harmonica. Leading his own band, with two well-received CDs, Willie Smith has a revitalized career as evidenced by BMA first in 2009, nominations in both Instrumentalist-Harmonica and Instrumentalist-Drums.
