Hargus Melvin “Pig” Robbins became one of Nashville’s most prolific session pianists, playing on thousands of recording sessions for artists including Alan Jakson, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Bob Dylan, Charlie Rich, Conway Twitty, Crystal Gayle, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Joan Baez, John Denver, Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, Patsy Cline, Randy Davis and Sturgill Simpson. Born in Spring City, Tennessee, on Jan. 18, 1938, he was the son of a cab driver; after accidentally blinding himself in one eye at age 2 when he fell onto a knife, he was completely blind by age 4. Sent at age 6 to the Tennessee School for the Blind in Donelson, he began learning piano there, receiving formal instruction but listening especially to country pianists such as Floyd Cramer and Moon Mullican, to R&B and jazz pianists including Ramsey Lewis and Ray Charles, and to pianists heard on African-American gospel radio shows. His nickname came from his time at the school, where after cleaning fire escapes and becoming covered with dust and grime, a supervisor said he was “dirty as a pig.” After leaving school, he worked in Nashville in a photofinishing lab and then as a club pianist, and in 1957 he played on his first session for the Sprouts, a rockabilly group signed to Spangle Records in Springfield, Ohio. Work increased after Floyd Cramer’s 1960 pop hit “Last Date” led Cramer to begin touring, and by then Robbins had played on his first hit, George Jones’ “White Lighting,” and had made his first solo record as Mel Robbins for Chess Records in Chicago. From the 1960s through the 2000s, session work was abundant in Nashville, and Robbins worked more sessions than any other pianists, developing the ability to memorize melodies, chords and key changes after hearing a song only once, so that other musicians sometimes relied on him to remember the structure of more complex songs. In February and March 1966, he joined the sessions that produced Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album, the first time he had played on songs longer than three minutes or on songs not written when the session began. Although Charlie Rich and Jerry Lee Lewis were renowned as pianists, Robbins played the much-emulated piano parts on Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” and Lewis’ “Middle Age Crazy,” and he also played the familiar piano parts on Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” and David Houston’s “Almost Persuaded.” He continued to record occasionally under his own name, with two singles charting briefly in 1979, toured briefly in 1985 with Neil Young’s International Harvesters, was named the CMA’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 1976 and 2000, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012 at the same time as Connie Smith and Garth Brooks.