Dance Album

Perkins, Carl

album cover

The First from Mr. Blue Suede Shoes

Guitarist, singer, and songwriter Carl Perkins made just this one record for Sun during the early days of rock and roll. But he was on the scene at label headquarters in Memphis, a sly catalyst whose fingerprints are all over the music of the label's giant-sized stars. Perkins's crisply articulated guitar lines formed the cool strut that came to be called "rockabilly," and the attitude he put into them made every track he played on explode.

Perkins liked to tell people his first guitar was made from a cigar box and a broom handle, with baling wire for strings. His song sense wasn't quite so primitive: He's best known as the author of "Blue Suede Shoes," one of rock's all-time-great jumps. His 1956 version of the song, included here, became a smash hit, one of the few rock-era songs to reach the Top 10 of the pop, R&B, and country charts simultaneously. (It was also Sun's first million-seller.) Just as Perkins's star was rising, bad luck descended. On the way to an appearance on TV's Perry Como Show, he was injured (and his brother was killed) in a car crash. Unable to perform, Perkins lost the face time on TV (other bookings had included the Ed Sullivan Show), and shortly after that, momentum around his record dried up. Then Presley did a rollicking version of "Blue Suede Shoes" that ballooned into an even bigger hit. Recalling the twist of fate, Perkins said he didn't resent Presley: "Elvis was not to be denied the top spot. He had . . . the looks and the moves and everything that the world was waiting on."

Still, Perkins's agile, spiderwebbed runs continued to define rock guitar; in the early days only Chuck Berry and Presley guitarist Scotty Moore had commensurate influence on six-string-wielding kids. And his songs—"Honey Don't," "Movie Magg," and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," all on this album—endure, still, as rock standards.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1958, Sun
Key Tracks: "Honey Don't," "Blue Suede Shoes," "Only You."
Next Stop: Elvis Presley: Sun Sessions
After That: Rockpile: Seconds of Pleasure
Book Pages: 592–593

Buy this Recording

Share this page: