Book review: Remembering music pioneer Carl Perkins

Readers fortunate enough to have spent their adolescence during the 1950s will certainly remember singer Carl Perkins. However, many, like the reviewer, may think that his signature song, “Blue Suede Shoes,” belonged to Elvis Presley who had covered Perkins’ iconic hit later. Jeff Apter’s new biography, “Carl Perkins,” should introduce him to younger generations and firmly establish his reputation as one of rock ’n’ roll’s founders.

Apter is an Australian writer who has published 30 books on the music scene, including an acclaimed biography of Keith Urban. Perkins’ story is an example of a true “rags to riches” tale of achieving lasting fame following a humble beginning.

As a child Perkins picked cotton alongside Black coworkers on a Tennessee plantation for 50 cents per day. His family of five lived in a three-room shack without electricity or running water. On the Saturday nights when they could afford a radio battery, the family would listen to the Grand Ole Opry where bluegrass great Bill Monroe was one of his favorites. His first two-string guitar was fashioned from a cigar box, broom handle and baling wire.

As a teen, he and his two brothers performed in local honky-tonks, which could have served as models for “Bob’s Country Bunker” portrayed in “The Blues Brothers” movie. The combination of gospel, blues and country music Perkins learned in this environment led to his embrace of a style of music that became known as “rockabilly.” Fortuitously, the simultaneous emergence of singers with similar backgrounds, such as Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, resulted in their lifelong friendships and intertwining careers. Each recorded at Sun Records in Memphis and, later, Perkins toured with Johnny Cash for many years. 

Perkins survived a serious auto accident that nearly ended his early career, the premature deaths of his two brothers, alcoholism and throat cancer while managing to maintain his guitar virtuosity and songwriting skills.

Hesitant readers should be reassured that the book’s end is decidedly upbeat. Unlike the more charismatic Presley, Perkins was able to enjoy acclaim before his death in 1998 at age 65. His career was reborn in the ’60s when all of the Beatles professed the influence of his music on their songs. Eric Clapton, John Fogarty and Tom Petty praised his expertise on the guitar. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, founded a charity for victims of child abuse, and remained married to his childhood sweetheart for 47 years. An eight-page photo insert enhances the prose. The book is an overdue remembrance of a pioneer of American music.