Hargus ‘Pig’ Robbins

Country keyboard titan BORN 1938

Hargus Melvin Robbins learned to play piano while attending the Tennessee School For The Blind. An admirer of Tex Ritter able to play music by ear, he soon took the short walk to Music City’s recording scene, his first major date being George Jones’ bootlegger anthem White Lightning in 1959. One of the Nashville A-Team of session aces, the decades that followed saw him play for a dazzling array of country talent as the music evolved from its hillbilly beginnings, while his appearance on Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde in 1966 ensured a wide array of engagements: few are the players whose credits ranged from Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton to Ray Charles, Neil Young, JJ Cale, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Sturgill Simpson and Ween. He also recorded solo albums including 1978’s A Pig In A Poke (his ’59 song Save It, meanwhile, was covered by The Cramps in 1983), and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012. ‘Pig’, whose name provided a gag in Robert Altman’s 1975 satire-masterpiece Nashville, was last heard on Connie Smith’s 2021 LP The Cry Of The Heart.