A true story, and one that qualifies as a ringing endorsement: I was doing just fine emotionally until I happened to listen to “Anna Lee,” the first track on Pinetop Perkins’ excellent new album, Back On Top. Then I was lost in the music, feeling the pain from every woman who had done me wrong, and then every woman Pinetop got hurt by, and then everyone’s pain everywhere, as an existential thing. It’s the heart of the blues, and it shows that his music, at age 86, retains that amazing brand of complex simplicity.

Of course, Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins is the world’s best living boogie-woogie pianist, end of story, but in recent years he’s stepped up to the mic and taken the spotlight for the first time. This, his second Telarc album, assembles a brilliant, mostly-acoustic trio, augments that with lots of help from Corey Harris and Sugar Ray Norcia on guitar and harp, respectively, grabs a lot of top-notch covers, including a remake of Pinetop ‘s signature tune, “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie,” and lets him flow. It’s not for nothing that he’s been a backup musician—his vocals are no match for his former bandleaders, Muddy Waters among them—but he wisely keeps it simple, revisiting early barrelhouse blues and smooth backporch ballads with an easy grace.

Which is not to say there’s not real fire here. “Down In Mississippi” and “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” for example, juke it up a notch with Smith and Norcia falling into a gin-soaked lockstep, while youngblood Corey manages to keep up with the old-timer on the sexy samba “Just A Little Bit.” Best of all, Perkins is only improving with age, if that “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” cover is any indication: dig those runs in the break! This album may yet nab Perkins that Grammy he deserves; at the very least, we know he’s having fun. “Wear some boxing gloves, in case some fool might want to fight,” he sings on “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” and adds, “like Mike Tyson.”