Carl Perkins

Carl Perkins ranks among the defining figures of rockabilly, a vocalist, guitarist, and composer whose early years as a sharecropper shaped his signature twangy boogie rhythms and fresh fusion of country with rhythm and blues. Together with Elvis Presley, he helped establish the core rockabilly sound while placing Memphis-based Sun Records in the national spotlight through enduring tracks such as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Matchbox,” “Honey, Don’t,” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” all featured on the 1957 release Dance Album. Although slower than some of his Million Dollar Quartet colleagues—including Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis—to reach widespread pop-culture recognition, he experienced repeated career resurgences beginning in the 1960s, touring alongside Chuck Berry and shaping the music of numerous later acts that ranged from the Beatles and Brian Setzer to U2. Perkins also supplied successful material for other artists, among them “Daddy Sang Bass” for Johnny Cash, “I Was So Wrong” for Patsy Cline, and “Let Me Tell You About Love” for the Judds. Before his passing in 1998 he earned induction into both the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and his historic 1955 recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Born Carl Lee Perkins in Tipton, Tennessee, in 1932 to sharecroppers Buck and Louise Perkins (listed on his birth certificate under the misspelling “Perkings”), he spent his childhood laboring in the cotton fields and residing in a modest shack alongside his parents, older brother Jay, and younger brother Clayton. A second-hand guitar arrived early, and lessons from a neighboring Black sharecropper introduced him directly to the boogie rhythm that later anchored his career. By his teenage years Perkins was performing on electric guitar, merging rhythm-and-blues traditions with bluegrass and country approaches. He soon assembled his siblings—Jay on vocals and rhythm guitar, Clayton on vocals and string bass—into the Perkins Brothers Band, which rapidly became the premier act on the demanding honky-tonk circuit around Jackson, Tennessee. While playing those venues Carl began writing his initial compositions, constantly gauging audience response on the dance floor and refining each loosely formed piece until it reached final shape, at which point he would commit it to paper. Demo tapes mailed to New York labels met repeated rejection, often with the explanation that the unusual country-and-rhythm-and-blues hybrid matched no prevailing commercial style. Hearing Elvis on the radio clarified both the music’s name and the existence of a producer willing to champion it; that producer was Sam Phillips, the label Sun Records, and in 1954 Perkins traveled there seeking an audition.

At the first Sun session the Perkins Brothers Band’s lineup underwent lasting change when Phillips showed no interest in Jay’s Ernest Tubb-styled vocals yet embraced Carl’s singing and guitar work. Four months afterward the label issued its inaugural Carl Perkins single, “Movie Magg” backed with “Turn Around,” both sides credited to the artist. On the second session drummer W.S. Holland, a friend of Clayton’s, joined the group, introducing an instrument still novel in country circles. Phillips continued directing Perkins toward a strictly hillbilly approach, concerned that two performers working in the same rockabilly vein would split the audience. Following the December sale of Elvis’s contract to RCA Victor, however, Phillips permitted Perkins to reveal his rocking sensibility at the next session. The resulting double-sided release became Perkins’s breakthrough. An overheard conversation between teenagers at a dance, combined with a song-title suggestion from labelmate Johnny Cash, prompted Perkins to present Phillips with the newly written “Blue Suede Shoes.” After recording two country-oriented sides intended as a Perkins Brothers Band single, he laid down three takes each of “Blue Suede Shoes” and the rocker “Honey Don’t.” A month later Phillips shelved the country material in favor of the rockers. Three months after that “Blue Suede Shoes,” which drew stylistically from pop, country, and rhythm and blues, simultaneously topped every major chart—the first record to achieve that distinction—while becoming Sun’s first million-selling release.

Eager to capitalize on national exposure, Perkins and his band traveled to New York for an appearance on The Perry Como Show. En route their car struck a poultry truck, leaving Carl with a cracked skull and Jay with a broken neck; both were hospitalized. Confined to traction, Perkins watched Presley perform the song on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, his own moment of national recognition eclipsed. Upon recovery he returned to the road and the Sun studios, attempting to resume momentum. Subsequent singles often surpassed “Blue Suede Shoes” in quality yet posted steadily lower sales, and only the British Invasion together with the early-1970s rockabilly revival allowed the broader public to appreciate further classics such as “Boppin’ the Blues,” “Matchbox,” “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” “Your True Love,” “Dixie Fried,” “Put Your Cat Clothes On,” and “All Mama’s Children.” While labelmates Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis—who contributed piano to “Matchbox” during the storied Million Dollar Quartet session—continued racking up hits, Perkins grew increasingly disillusioned, his outlook darkened by growing alcohol dependence and the death of brother Jay from cancer. He persisted, and when Cash departed Sun for Columbia in 1958 Perkins followed, drawn by improved royalties and an ample catalog of strong material. Columbia’s regimented Nashville production methods, however, erased the spontaneous feel that had distinguished the Sun recordings.

By the early 1960s, after Columbia dropped him and a brief, unsuccessful stint at Decca, Perkins was again working honky-tonks and considering retirement from music. A 1964 booking-agent call for an English tour paired with Chuck Berry reversed that trajectory. Temporarily abstaining from alcohol, Perkins was welcomed in Britain as a returning hero, drawing sold-out crowds and earning special praise from a rising beat group called the Beatles. George Harrison had learned his craft from Perkins’s Sun sides, as had most British guitarists of the era, and the Fab Four ultimately recorded more Perkins compositions than those of any other external writer. The tour restored his enthusiasm and revealed that, without deliberate effort on his part, he had transitioned from overlooked veteran to revered figure in a country he had never previously visited. Back in the States he rejoined longtime friend and former labelmate Cash, becoming a steady presence on the road show for the next decade and finally overcoming his struggle with alcohol. Recording continued, yielding My Kind of Country in 1973 and a collection of rock-and-roll and country covers on 1978’s Ol’ Blue Suede’s Back.

With the 1980s rockabilly revival Perkins stood at its center, touring with a new band that featured his sons, among them future Rockabilly Hall of Famer Stan Perkins. In 1982 he collaborated with Paul McCartney on “Get It,” included on the album Tug of War. He also teamed with Stray Cats members Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom for a re-recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” featured on the soundtrack to the comedy Porky’s Revenge. The year 1985 proved especially notable: Perkins headlined the live television special Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session, taped at London’s Limehouse Studios with guests including George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds, Rosanne Cash, and Ringo Starr, and he appeared alongside David Bowie in director John Landis’s film Into the Night. That same year brought induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Two years later he entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and soon afterward the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 1986 his original 1955 recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” was honored by the Grammy Hall of Fame. Also in 1986 he reunited with fellow Sun alumni Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison for Class of ’55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming, a tribute to their shared early years at the label. In 1989 he reached number one on the country chart with the Judds on “Let Me Tell You About Love” and issued his own album Born to Rock.

Perkins released Friends, Family, & Legends in 1992, a star-studded project featuring Chet Atkins, Travis Tritt, Joan Jett, Charlie Daniels, Paul Shaffer, and additional guests. He later contributed a version of “Matchbox” with Duane Eddy and the Mavericks to the 1994 AIDS-benefit collection Red Hot + Country. His final album, Go Cat Go!, appeared in 1996 and included appearances by many artists he had influenced, among them George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Bono, John Fogerty, and Tom Petty. After an extended fight with throat cancer, Perkins died in early 1998 at age 65, his historical stature firmly established.