His hit tune "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "breaks" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of rock and roll.
[3] Smith was acknowledged by other boogie-woogie pianists such as Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson as a key influence, and he gained posthumous fame when "Boogie Woogie" was arranged for big band and recorded by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra in 1938.
[2] Although not immediately successful, "Boogie Woogie" was so popular during and after World War II[9] that it became Dorsey's best-selling record, with over five million copies sold.
When he was in his nineties, he recorded a song on his 2004 album Ladies' Man, which played on the by-then common misconception that he had written "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie".
Ray Charles adapted "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" for his song "Mess Around", for which the authorship was credited to "A. Nugetre", Ahmet Ertegun.
Pinetop Smith invented boogie woogie blues at the corner of North and Larrabee, where he finally was murdered: the electric wire is 'blue' and dangerous.