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Carl Perkins - Original Sun Greatest Hits

Carl Perkins - Carl Perkins - Original Sun Greatest Hits Audio CD

A fair review of the Carl Perkins "Carl Perkins - Original Sun Greatest Hits" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Carl Perkins reviews here, or go back to the Carl Perkins tabs.

Band: Carl Perkins
Title: Carl Perkins - Original Sun Greatest Hits
Rating:

Release Date: 1990-10-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Blue Suede Shoes 2: Honey Don't 3: Boppin' the Blues 4: Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby 5: Movie Magg 6: Sure to Fall 7: All Mama's Children 8: Perkins Wiggle 9: Put Your Cat Clothes On 10: Matchbox 11: Your True Love 12: Lend Me Your Comb 13: Dixie Fried 14: You Can Do No Wrong 15: Glad All Over 16: Gone, Gone, Gone

essential Carl Perkins
Not a HUGE rockabilly fanatic, but I do love it when I hear it. I can relate to the customer review below. Especially live. Some of the best live music performance I ever heard were rockabilly bands. You can't beat this Carl Perkins collection. Great driving music or just chillin' around the house music. You can hear this man's influence throughout early rock 'n' roll. Elvis of course. Johnny Cash. And the Beatles. Hearing this collection you wont be surprised to read that Carl Perkins is the penultimate of rockabilly music. Here's a nice quote:
"Carl Perkins' songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins' sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed. " -- Charlie Daniels. So there ya go. Worth clicking the buy button.

great music
this isn't really the genre i listen too, but if you love music, you'll love this.

BLUE SUEDE SHOES
Any one who harkens back to the 50s', as a participaant or a student of the start up of the rock n roll era, recognizes this song as key to the era. Awesome CD.

Here's a guy whos' career was smashed by the popularity, and talent, of a guy named Elvis.

Too bad! There was room for both.

PS: I still think that Perkins version was better, and I was there.

Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes
They melded country, rhythm and blues, and Texas swing, thereby creating rock and roll for the ages. "Carl Perkins Original Sun Greatest Hits," (Rhino, 1990) is a good compilation of the man's early hits on Sam Phillips's 1950's Memphis-headquartered Sun label, when the awesome talent - think Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Perkins -- was busy inventing rockabilly. Perkins was a guitar player, singer/songwriter who wrote most of his material, including his first hit single, written and recorded in 1955, released in 1956: the classic "Blue Suede Shoes," backed by "Honey Don't. "

The Perkins story is built largely around the "Blue Suede Shoes" story, which is recounted on the Internet. In the fall of 1955, Cash supposedly mentioned to Perkins, when the two, along with Presley and others, were trouping on "Louisiana Hayride," that, while serving in the military in Germany, he'd heard a black airman refer to his required military air shoes as "blue suede shoes. " So Cash, the story goes, suggested to Perkins that he should write a song on the subject. To which Perkins supposedly replied, "I don't know anything about shoes. How can I write a song about shoes?"

However, Perkins soon played a dance, on December 4, 1955 -- a very eventful day at Sun Studios. Perkins noted a beautiful girl dancing with a boy in blue suede shoes, and the boy was telling her, "Don't step on my suedes. " Perkins thereupon sat down and wrote the song on a brown paper potato sack. He says he spelled "suede" "swade;" "I couldn't even spell it right. " The single started selling slowly, but was finally selling 20,000 copies a day; country's first million selling song, also the first to cross over to the pop and rhythm and blues charts. Perkins was booked to perform on national television, the Perry Como Show, and then the Ed Sullivan. But he had a serious automobile accident en route to New York; a truck driver was killed, and Perkins spent months in hospital, washing out both tv dates.

Meanwhile, Presley, who'd supposedly promised Perkins never to take the song, recorded it in early 1956, as soon as he went to RCA Victor, and went on nationwide tv three times that year to push it. Presley was to record it twice more, and to have a hit with it, though not as big as Perkins'; the Presley version reached only #20 on the charts, though it did eventually sell millions too.

The song is a rock and roll standard, often referred to in other songs, recorded by many, sometimes called "Rock and Roll's National Anthem. " The Presley take is, of course, still around, but it is Perkins' darker, closer to the bone original that has survived best. It has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's"500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" honor roll; the Grammy Hall of Fame; and in 2006, the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine named it #95 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all times; in 1999 National Public Radio named it to its "NPR Top 100" list.

Perkins' bad luck cost him the stratospheric stardom he might have had, and he had some troubled years trying to live with that. But he did eventually carve out a career for himself. Also included here are his archival-quality "Boppin'The Blues;""Dixie Fried," a hard-edged, dark song about honkytonks and the men who patronize them; and the biting "All Mama's Children," co-written with Cash. The Tennessean must be honored as an essential figure in the creation of rock and roll.
.

Carl Perkins-his music lives on!
But what spoke to us all in the 1950s and still speaks to us ever so vibrantly today is the musical legacy that this very talented songwriter/performer left us all. Volumes have been written on the life,times and career of this legendary rockabilly artist so I cannot really add anything more in that respect. And this CD is a small but sweet look at some of the best recordings not only by Mr. Perkins but by any artist in the rock and roll genre period.
There of course is the seminal 'Blue Suede Shoes' here along with the hard driving 'Matchbox' and 'Honey Don't'. A couple of my all time favourite Carl Perkins songs are also included here:'Everybody's Trying to be my Baby' and 'Put your Cat Clothes On'. All of the tracks reach out, touch you down deep and before you know it you're in his musical grip and your feet just can't stop moving. There is just something very real and raw about Mr. Perkins' music that no other artist could touch.
And of course to see him perform was nothing short of mesmerizing. I would invite you to check out "youtube" and watch him actually play some of the songs on this CD on TV shows from the 50s. Electric.
As a side note I must admit to more than a little prejudice in regards to Mr. Perkins. I was in attendance in Lubbock, Texas in 1986 for a celebration of what would have been Buddy Hollys' 50th birthday. There were MANY well known artists in attendance but the stand out that evening to me was Carl Perkins. His show just blew everyone elses' away with his musicianship and his ability to entertain and touch each and every one of us there on a personal level. To top everything off I actually met Mr. Perkins face to face. I will never forget it as long as I live. He was everything you would want a musical idol to be and more. He was extremely nice and polite and listened oh so patiently to my few seconds rant on my long trip there just to see him and how much of a musical idol and influence he had been in my life. A more humble so called "star" I have never met, as he seemed to appreciate me as much as I did him! As I said, a meeting I will never forget.
So Mr. Perkins this is my long over due salute to you and your music. This CD is about the best one currently available to those who want a proper sampling of Mr Perkins' essential recordings. Get your own copy today and remember to put on those dancing shoes(blue suede or otherwise). . . . . you'll need them!.

You can see a complete list of all Carl Perkins discography, or go back to the Carl Perkins tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.