Peter (Memphis Slim) Chatman; Pianist

Memphis Slim, the American-born pianist who help export the blues to the rest of the world, died in a Paris hospital Wednesday.

Friends said the 72-year-old musician, whose real name was Peter Chatman, died of kidney failure. He had continued to tour up to the time he entered Necker Hospital.

During his long career, Memphis Slim wrote the songs “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Wish Me Well,” “Mother Earth” and “Beer Drinking Woman,” and recorded at least 40 albums, including “Raining the Blues” and “The Bluesman.”

“He set his sights on things that other black people could only dream of and accomplished everything he wanted,” his daughter, Vivian, said in Chicago after his death. “He had a Ph.D in life.”

The pianist, a slender 6-foot-5, was known to music critics and his fans as a “lefty” whose strong left hand and long fingers allowed him to carry a heavy bass rhythm. He played often at Les Trois Maillets and other jazz clubs in Paris.

“He was one of the originals,” said Mike Zwerin, a Paris-based jazz and blues music writer. “He took blues to the rest of the world.”

Chatman lived in a mansion outside Paris, wore designer suits and drove Rolls-Royce cars, which he was known to double-park outside clubs when he decided to stop for a while.

Although he had made his home in France since 1961, he often returned to the United States to play, appearing as a regular fixture at the Chicago Blues Festival and other blues gatherings.

His body is being returned to Memphis for services at the N. J. Ford & Son Funeral Parlor.

He leaves his wife, five children and his mother.