Episode thirty-six of the podcast A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs delves into the classic track “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins, marking the first installment of a three-part series exploring the landscape of Sun Records and the birth of rockabilly following Elvis Presley’s departure. This discussion offers deep insights into the creation and impact of a song so iconic it transcends genres and eras, capturing the raw energy that perhaps even influenced unexpected corners of culture, extending its reach beyond the ordinary realm to figures imagined, like The Pirates Blue Suede Shoes might appeal to for their swagger. The episode notes provide extensive details, supplementary materials, and a full transcript for those wishing to explore further into this pivotal moment in music history.
Notably, the episode includes a clarification regarding Carl Perkins’ song “Movie Magg.” While the podcast mentions it’s about riding a mule to the cinema, the song’s lyric actually uses the word “horse.” Perkins’ family did own a mule when he wrote the song, and that was his real-life inspiration, despite the lyrical substitution.
Access to the full versions of songs discussed in the episode is provided through a Mixcloud streaming playlist (though potentially unavailable in North America due to copyright) and a Spotify playlist. These playlists are curated to supplement the listening experience.
Key resources informing this episode include [Go Cat Go! The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, co-authored by Carl Perkins and David McGee,] and [Sam Phillips: the Man Who Invented Rock and Roll by Peter Guralnick], particularly for details concerning Phillips and Sun Records. Multiple compilations of Perkins’ Sun recordings are available, including a double-CD set and a comprehensive ten-disc collection documenting the history of Sun Records chronologically through its early singles.
This podcast series is supported by generous backers on Patreon, who also have access to bonus content, such as a ten-minute bonus episode on “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” by the Cheers.
Sun Records After Elvis: The Birth of Rockabilly
The departure of Elvis Presley from Sun Records to RCA didn’t signal an end to Sam Phillips’ pursuit of rock and roll. Quite the opposite. The substantial sum RCA paid for Elvis’ contract provided Sun Records with unprecedented financial stability, enabling Phillips to fully dedicate himself to cultivating the sound that would become his enduring legacy. This period saw Sun Records transition significantly from a blues-focused label to the definitive hub of rockabilly music.
While Elvis is often credited as the first rockabilly artist, the genre truly solidified and gained widespread recognition only after he left Sun. Phillips began producing records that defined rockabilly not just as the work of one artist, but as a distinct genre. The quintessential rockabilly sound forged in Sun studios adhered to specific characteristics, according to purists: mandatory slapback echo on vocals and instruments, an electric lead guitar, and a slapback bass. It was a primitive sound, mirroring Elvis’ earliest recordings, allowing for minimal additions like piano or drums (primarily to accommodate artists like Jerry Lee Lewis) but strictly excluding horns, strings, backing vocals, steel guitar, or fiddle, which would lean towards country music. Although other labels produced rockabilly records, they were essentially emulating the sound pioneered by Sam Phillips at Sun.
Phillips and his small team discovered a wealth of talented, dynamic musicians after Elvis’ departure, ensuring Sun Records’ permanent place in music history despite losing its biggest star. The first of these new talents to arrive while Elvis was still signed was Carl Perkins.
The Man Behind the Music: Carl Perkins’ Early Life and Influences
Carl Perkins, like many rock and roll pioneers, hailed from extreme poverty. His parents were illiterate sharecroppers who even misspelled their surname on his birth certificate. Growing up, his family was so poor that when young Carl, inspired by the Grand Ole Opry, wished for a guitar, his father crafted one from a cigar box and a broom handle. Carl became skilled enough that he eventually received a real guitar. His inability to afford new strings meant he often had to tie broken ones together, leading him to develop a distinctive guitar technique: bending strings to achieve different notes, rather than fretting them conventionally, to avoid the knots that hurt his fingers.
At fourteen, Perkins wrote his first song, “Movie Magg,” which vividly illustrated his impoverished background. The lyrics describe going to the cinema riding on a mule, reflecting a reality where riding a mule was sometimes considered more respectable than owning a dilapidated, rusted car, the only kind accessible to those slightly better off. Perkins’ early work consistently reflects a depth of poverty difficult for most listeners to comprehend, rooted in the country music of his upbringing and shaped by a childhood spent picking cotton for meager pay to help his family survive.
When Carl mastered lead guitar, he taught his brother Jay rudimentary rhythm parts. Both brothers shared a love for music but differed in taste: Carl was a devout fan of bluegrass innovator Bill Monroe, known for high-pitched, driving, harmony-rich songs of longing, while Jay preferred the low, honky-tonk style of Ernest Tubb. They recruited their younger brother Clayton, who had a decent sense of rhythm despite not being particularly passionate about music (preferring drinking and fighting), teaching him basic bass positions. Their friend Fluke Holland joined on drums, forming the Perkins Brothers Band.
Forming the Band and Finding the Sound
For several years, the Perkins brothers honed their skills playing in some of Tennessee’s roughest bars. These venues often had a custom of buying two bottles of beer at once – one for drinking, one for using as a weapon – necessitating a style of music geared towards keeping people dancing and distracted. They quickly developed a sound rooted in honky-tonk but heavily focused on danceability, incorporating elements of bluegrass, Western Swing, and blues – anything that could get a crowd of drunken patrons moving with just two guitars, a double bass, and drums. Both Carl and Jay shared lead vocal duties. When they ran out of songs, Carl would improvise new ones over standard chord progressions, remembering good lines or choruses to reuse, gradually structuring these improvisations into regular parts of their setlist.
Carl Perkins, pioneer of rockabilly and artist of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’
They soon earned a full-time living playing for bars filled with volatile men, starting before they were even legally old enough to enter the establishments. Their initial ambition was modest – just to earn a living doing something enjoyable. Carl slowly developed a distinct sound for the songs he wrote and sang, recognizing it was different and unique, though he couldn’t quite define it.
Seeking Sun Records: A Chance Encounter
This changed when he heard Elvis Presley singing Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on the radio. Carl recognized a kindred spirit, someone else creating a similar sound. If this Elvis kid could achieve stardom with such music, maybe Carl could too. He and his brothers traveled to Memphis to see Elvis perform live. While Jay and Clayton disliked Elvis, viewing his attention to appearance with contempt, Carl saw possibility.
Determined, Carl decided to audition for Sun Records at 706 Union Avenue. They were initially turned away by Marion Keisker, who stated they weren’t holding auditions and didn’t need new singers. When Carl mentioned they sounded somewhat like Elvis, she became even more dismissive, stating they already had an Elvis. Despondent, they returned to their car, believing their dream was over. However, as they did, a Cadillac pulled up, and a man exited. Assuming he was the label owner, they approached him and explained their situation.
Sam Phillips initially echoed Keisker’s sentiment, stating he was too busy and had enough acts. Carl was devastated. Phillips later recounted being moved by Carl’s pitiful appearance, relenting and agreeing to a quick listen, emphasizing his tight schedule. Entering the studio, the band began playing. Phillips stopped them after a verse of the first song, uninterested. They tried another; again, Phillips stopped them. Just as they were about to leave, Carl asked for one last chance with his fourteen-year-old song, “Movie Magg.” As the band played, Carl noticed Phillips listening intently, without stopping them.
At the end, Phillips stated that if they returned with a few more songs like that, they might be worth recording. The band was elated, but Phillips then said something more concerning to Carl privately: there was no place for Jay’s lead vocals. “There’s already one Ernest Tubb in the world. No-one needs another one.” Unbeknownst to them at the time, the Perkins Brothers Band had effectively become Carl Perkins and his band.
From Band to Solo Act: Early Singles
A few weeks later, they returned with more songs. Phillips released “Movie Magg,” backed by a ballad Carl had written called “Turn Around.” These were released not on Sun Records itself, but on a new label called Flip. Flip was intended for audition records, released only in the Tennessee area without paying full union scale or expensive shipping/print costs. Phillips was facing financial challenges and seeking ways to cut expenses.
“Movie Magg” performed well enough on Flip that for Carl Perkins’ next single, Phillips promoted him to the main Sun Records label. This followed the same formula: an uptempo A-side paired with a B-side ballad reminiscent of Hank Williams. The A-side, “Gone Gone Gone,” was one of Carl’s improvised songs, with each take varying slightly but based on the core idea riffing on the phrase, “It must be jelly, ’cause jam don’t shake like that.”
“Gone Gone Gone” wasn’t a major hit, but it sold sufficiently well for Phillips to arrange a tour for Perkins alongside Elvis and another new Sun artist, Johnny Cash. It was on this tour that Cash made a pivotal suggestion.
The Spark of an Idea: The Birth of “Blue Suede Shoes”
Johnny Cash recalled a black serviceman named C.V. Wright who referred to his service-issued shoes as “blue suede shoes” and suggested to Perkins that he write a song about them. Perkins initially dismissed the idea, wondering what he knew about shoes and how such a topic could inspire a song. He found the concept ridiculous.
The tour proceeded successfully, aside from one notable incident. Perkins and Presley, having bonded over their mutual admiration for the song “Only You,” led Perkins to add the song to his setlist. This irritated Presley, who had planned to perform “Only You” himself that night and felt upstaged by Perkins’ performance. While they remained friends, they never again performed on the same bill. However, Elvis did take Carl shopping and offered advice on dressing more sophisticatedly for the stage.
Shortly after that tour, while performing another show, Perkins observed a man in the audience chastising his date, “Don’t step on my suedes!” This incident sparked a deeper contemplation about the kind of person who would value their shoes so highly, linking it to themes of pride and poverty – people who have little but hold onto that little with fierce pride. This idea merged with Cash’s earlier suggestion about blue suede shoes. One night, Perkins was inspired and got out of bed to write a song, playing his electric guitar unplugged to avoid waking his wife. He initially spelled “suede” as “swade,” unsure of the correct spelling. Two days later, on December 19, 1955, he was in the studio recording the track he titled “Blue Swade Shoes.”
Facing Challenges: From Poverty to Plastic Records
Perkins was convinced “Blue Suede Shoes” was his breakthrough hit. Yet, he was plagued by depression about his financial prospects. Supporting a wife and children, his music earnings were so meager he had to work side jobs on farms just to afford Christmas presents for his kids. People at these jobs were often surprised to see “that singer fella” doing manual labor, assuming his records and stage shows meant he was wealthy.
His spirits were at a low point, which worsened when he finally received his complimentary copies of the new single. They arrived smashed in the mail. Desiring his own copy, he went to a local record shop and asked for it. He was horrified by what he saw: instead of the familiar ten-inch shellac record with a small hole, he was presented with a seven-inch disc made of plastic with a large hole in the center. Convinced his record was ruined, he cried to his wife upon returning home with the small, flexible disc. They eventually understood that this was the new format – seven-inch vinyl records – which was what young people preferred.
The Smash Hit: “Blue Suede Shoes” Ascends
“Blue Suede Shoes” was an undeniable hit, and its B-side, “Honey Don’t,” also received significant airplay. The song’s massive success even prompted a concerned call from Steve Sholes at RCA to Sam Phillips, questioning if they had acquired the wrong artist in Elvis. Phillips reassured him they hadn’t.
Remarkably, “Blue Suede Shoes” and Elvis’ first RCA single, “Heartbreak Hotel,” climbed the charts simultaneously. “Heartbreak Hotel” ultimately reached number one, with “Blue Suede Shoes” right behind at number two. Both songs achieved crossover success, hitting the top two in both the pop and country charts and the top five in R&B.
The popularity of “Blue Suede Shoes” was such that at one point, two different television shows featured performances of it concurrently: Carl Perkins made his very first TV appearance performing the song on the Ozark Jubilee, while simultaneously, Elvis Presley performed his cover version on the Stage Show on another network. Presley’s version wasn’t released as a single until several months later, following a mutual agreement to avoid impacting Perkins’ sales. However, it was featured as the opening track on Presley’s debut album and on an EP. When Presley’s single version finally appeared towards the end of the year, it reached the top twenty, generating further royalties for Perkins.
Two Versions, One Legacy: Perkins vs. Presley
While both Perkins’ and Presley’s versions of “Blue Suede Shoes” were immensely popular, they had crucial rhythmic differences beyond the performer. Perkins’ original is considered more rhythmically interesting, featuring a stop-time introduction that essentially places it in six-four time before settling into four-four. Elvis’ version maintains a consistent four-four beat throughout. Elvis’ performance prioritizes a sense of urgency from the start, whereas Perkins’ builds tension and release. Listen to Elvis’ introduction: “Well, it’s one for the money,” BAM, “two for the show”, BAM… it emphasizes immediate drive. Compare this to Perkins’: “Well, it’s one for the money…” (pause) “…two for the show…” (pause). It seems to hesitate after each line, building anticipation. This gives Perkins’ original a rhythmic complexity not present in Presley’s version, making it the more sophisticated, musicianly recording. Most subsequent cover versions have followed Presley’s rhythmic pattern, with the notable exception of John Lennon’s 1969 live cover, which adopted Perkins’ stop-time intro.
A Tragic Turn and Lingering Disputes
Unfortunately, Carl Perkins’ burgeoning career was tragically interrupted by a car accident. On his way to appear on the Perry Como Show on television, Perkins’ car collided with a truck. The truck driver was killed, and both Carl and his brother Jay were hospitalized. They recovered, but the accident caused their career to lose crucial momentum. By the time they were fully recovered, Sam Phillips’ attention had shifted to new artists.
Phillips did provide Perkins with a Cadillac, similar to the one that had impressed Carl when he first met Phillips. He stated it was a reward for the first Sun Records artist to have a million-seller, which “Blue Suede Shoes” was. Perkins was less pleased to discover the car was not a gift but had been paid for out of his royalties. This incident marked the beginning of a lifelong series of royalty disputes between Perkins and Phillips, with Carl always believing he was owed more money than he received.
Perkins never achieved another hit as a performer, and his career remained defined by “Blue Suede Shoes.” However, he continued to record excellent music, some of which would inspire incredibly influential musicians worldwide and rightfully become classics. In a few weeks, another episode will explore one of these later records and recount a significant studio encounter.
Ultimately, it is “Blue Suede Shoes” that secured Carl Perkins’ place in music history. More than any other record, sixty-three years later, it encapsulates that vibrant moment in 1956 when two young artists from Tennessee raced up the charts, irrevocably shaping the future of rock and roll.
