The article is about Carl Perkins the musician. For the politicians see Carl C. Perkins and Carl D. Perkins.
Carl Lee Perkins ( April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998) was an American pioneer of rockabilly music, a mix of rhythm and blues and country music that evolved at Sun Records in Memphis in the early 1950s.
Born in Tiptonville, Tennessee, as a poor tenant farmer, Perkins grew up surrounded by southern gospel music sung by blacks working in the cotton fields. By age seven, he was playing a guitar his father made from a cigar box, broomstick and baling wire. At age thirteen, he won a talent contest with a song he wrote called "Movie Magg". Ten years later, the same song convinced Sam Phillips to sign Perkins to his Sun Records label.
In late 1955, a desperately poor and struggling Perkins wrote the song " Blue Suede Shoes" on an old potato sack. Produced by Sam Phillips, the record was a massive chart success. In the United States, it went to #1 on Billboard magazine's country music charts (the only #1 hit he would have), to #4 on the pop music charts, and to #3 on the rhythm & blues charts. In the United Kingdom, it became a Top 10 hit. It was the first record by a Sun label artist to sell a million copies. However, at the peak of the song's national success, Perkins was involved in a near-fatal car accident. Perkins could only watch as his friend, Elvis Presley, had a huge hit with a cover version of "Blue Suede Shoes".
Intentionally or not, the Elvis cover stole Perkins' thunder, and he never had another Top 40 hit, even after his move to Columbia Records in 1958. However, his songs were kept in the public eye by such groups as the Beatles, who covered "Matchbox", "Honey Don't", and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby". In 1968, Johnny Cash took the Perkins-written "Daddy Sang Bass" to #1 on the country music charts. Perkins would spend a decade in Cash's touring band.