Carl Perkins: Spreading That Blue Suede All Around the World

Dana Spiardi — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 05:00:21 +0000

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Rockabilly King Carl Perkins? Yes, “Blue Suede Shoes.” Congratulations. I hope no one out there thinks that Elvis wrote this rockin’ ditty. His version seems to be the one everybody remembers. Chalk it up to hair and hips. But it was the El’s buddy Carl, the poor ‘ol sharecropper’s son from Tennessee, who wrote and first recorded it. He got the idea for the tune’s title while performing at a dance in December 1955. Between songs he overheard a young man tell his dance partner, “Uh-uh, don’t step on my suedes!” Later than night he started writing lyrics on a piece of brown paper potato sack, spelling the title, “Blue Swade.” Within two weeks he was recording the song at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis.

Since its release in January 1956, there’s never been a shortage of blue suede in the world of rock. The song has been covered by everyone from The Beatles and Buddy Holly to Bill Haley and Pat Boone. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that some rather unlikely artists have also recorded and performed this most sacred of rock tunes. Here’s a smathering of some rather outré Blue Suede renditions, plus covers of other Perkins classics.

Avant-garde musicians The Residents:

Swedish Elvis impersonator Eilert Pilarm:

Here’s Filipina recording artist Regine Velasquez with a bluesy, sexy version. I think she actually wants her man to make love to her shoes.

Guitar god Jimi Hendrix performed this very funky rendition of Carl’s song. And you just KNOW that Jimi had blue psychedelic shoes of some sort.

And then there’s bad boy Lemmy:

“Blue Suede Shoes” isn’t the only Perkins song beloved by rockers of all stripes. Punk band The Cramps covered Carl’s “Her Love Rubbed Off” on their album “Stay Sick.”

The Beatles recorded three Perkins-penned songs on their studio albums: “Matchbox,” “Everybody’s Trying to be My Baby,” and “Honey Don’t.”

In fact, “Honey Don’t” is the only officially released Beatles song that was covered by each member individually: John recorded it for the soundtrack of his homemade film Clock; Paul recorded it with Perkins during sessions for Paul’s “Tug Of War” album; Ringo performed it with Carl for the 1986 TV special Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session With Carl Perkins And Friends; and George performed a version with Bob Dylan and John Fogerty at a 1987 Hollywood gig by bluesman Taj Mahal.

Paul once said, “If there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.” Here’s George singing “Everybody’s Trying to be My Baby.”

Carl Perkins died at age 65 on January 19, 1998, from throat cancer. Here’s a clip of that cool cat singing one of my favorites, “Matchbox.”

I had the privilege of visiting Sun Studios in Memphis a few years back, and got to stand in the room where Carl, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis once made history. Here I am, pointing to Carl’s original 45 of “Blue Suede Shoes,” with his portrait above it. I was “Gone, Gone, Gone,” baby.

© Dana Spiardi, January 19, 2015

Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing

Dana Spiardi — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 05:00:24 +0000

December 19, 1980: That was the last time I dropped a quarter into a jukebox and had the pleasure of hearing THREE songs. I’m thinking they were “Brass in Pocket,” “Emotional Rescue” and “Romeo’s Tune.” Why on earth would I recollect those kinds of details? Because they relate to a memorable first date, that’s why. In my heyday, jukeboxes and romance went together like woofers and tweeters. It was a college date, which meant that all we could afford was a large pepperoni pie at the Pizza House near the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “This is the only jukebox in town that still plays three songs for a quarter,” said I, the Tweeter, lamenting the escalating price per unit of musical pleasure. “No, it’s probably the only remaining three-song-per-quarter jukebox in the world,” said Frank, the Woofer. Twenty-one years old, and already we were missing “the good old days” — of Rock-Olas, of Wurlitzers, of Seeburgs, of all the grand record machines that provided the affordable soundtrack to many a romantic rendezvous.

On this date in 1889, the world’s first jukebox was installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. It was constructed by the Pacific Phonograph Company, and had four stethoscope-like tubes attached to an Edison electric phonograph. You merely dropped a coin in the slot, and up to four people could listen to the song individually via the tubes. The machine wasn’t actually referred to as a jukebox until the 1940s. The name apparently came from juke joint, a term that southern blacks used to describe a a rowdy, wicked place. (Juke or joog comes from Gullah, an English-based Creole language spoken by people of African ancestry.)

A quote from wise old weed-lover Willie Nelson perfectly evokes the scenario of countless sad souls who spent their last bit of chump change on beer and jukebox tunes, in dingy bars from Bakersfield to Brooklyn Heights, pining over lost love: “Ninety-nine percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.”

Here are Pittsburgh’s home-grown heroes The Iron City Houserockers singing a little gem called “Rock Ola.” That’s the name of the legendary jukebox made by the Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation, which was founded in 1927. Here, Joe Grushecky sings about the emptiness and futility of the working life: “Nobody has any free will / they just do what they do to get by.” In the end, salvation can be found in the form of music, emanating from that glorious box in the corner of a hole-in-the-wall South Side bar: “Rock Ola, Rock Ola / rock all over me / No one could ever know / how much it means to me.”

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t include this jukebox song from my favorite rockabilly, Carl Perkins:

By Dana Spiardi, Nov 23, 2013

carl perkins – The Hip Quotient

Carl Perkins: Spreading That Blue Suede All Around the World

Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing