Roots Of Rock: "Blue Suede Shoes"

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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Tariq Rose.

It's a fresh air tradition that the week leading into Labor Day, we do a themed series of interviews from our archive.

This week's theme is R ⁇ B, rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll.

I got that idea while listening to a terrific podcast I recommend called A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.

While listening to the early episodes about the prehistory and early history of rock, I often found myself thinking, wait, that person is in our archive.

Those are the people we'll be hearing from.

Later today, we'll hear my interview with one of the pioneers of rockabilly, Carl Perkins, who wrote and made the first recording of Blue Suede Shoes.

After that, Elvis made his hit recording.

We begin our series with a guitarist on Elvis' version, Scotty Moore.

He played with Elvis from 1954 to 1964.

He reunited with Elvis for his 1968 comeback special.

As Peter Guralnik, the author of the definitive biography of Elvis, wrote, quote, guitar players of every generation since rock began have studied and memorized Scotty's licks, even when Scotty himself couldn't duplicate them, unquote.

Scotty Moore died in 2016 at the age of 84.

We're going to hear the interview I recorded with him in 1997 after the publication of his memoir about his years with Elvis called That's All Right Elvis.

The title is a reference to Elvis' first single, That's Alright, which was recorded in 1954 and featured Moore on guitar.

It was recorded for Sun Records, the label created and owned by Sam Phillips, who we'll hear from on tomorrow's show.

When we spoke, a box set of previously unreleased Elvis tracks had just been released.

We started with a previously unreleased take of Lordy Miss Claudie.

Listen for Scotty Moore's solo.

Well, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, Miss Claude,

girl, you sure look good to me.

Well, please don't excite me, baby.

No, it can't be me

because I give you all of my money.

Girl, but you just won't treat me right.

You like the ball

morning.

Don't come home till late at night.

Before Scotty Moore recorded with Elvis at Sun Records, Moore recorded at Sun with his own country band, the Starlight Wranglers.

That's how we got to know the owner and mastermind of Sun Records, Sam Phillips.

But we became just

great friends through that connection.

And we'd have coffee next door at a little cafe there and

just discuss the business in general.

You've heard so-and-so and the record they've got out and the way they're doing it and different sounds.

And Sam was always saying, well, if we can just find something different, we can find that little niche, you know, to get in between all this other stuff that's happening.

And Marion, his secretary, was having coffee with us one day.

And she said,

Sam, what about that boy was in about a year ago and cutting that estate for his mother?

And Sam said, yeah,

best I remember, he had a pretty good voice.

And he turned to me and said, Give him a call and get him to come over to your house and see what you think about it.

I called him.

He came over on Sunday afternoon.

and

it seems like he knew every song in the world.

Well, when you asked him to come over and do some songs for you, what songs did he sing?

Everything.

I mean, he did Billy Eckstein, he did Eddie Arnold.

I don't remember a specific song necessarily, but I mean, he just knew all these songs.

And did he do them in the style of the singer who had the hit version?

Yes.

So musically, you thought he was versatile, but you couldn't tell who he was.

That's fair to say.

And in fact, when after he left that day, I called and relayed

that basic information to Sam.

I said, I said, you remember you told us to go out and get some original material.

And he said, well, he said, I'll tell you what.

I'll call him and get him to come in for an audition and said, just you and Bill Black come in.

I don't need the whole band.

I just need a little, you know, just a little noise behind him.

So the next night we went in, which was the audition, and

we were taking a break.

It's when the thing exploded, Elvis just jumped up and started just frilling his guitar and singing, That's Alright, Mama.

Just nervous energy.

Now, that was a song by Arthur Kruda.

Kruda, yes.

Did you know the song when he was starting to play it?

No, I'd never heard it.

So you just started to fill in behind him?

Right, Bill.

Knowing the song?

Bill started just slapping the bass,

and

it sounded pretty good what they're doing, so I started just playing some kind of rhythm thing with him, too.

And

then Sam Phillips, the head of Sun Records, liked it and asked you to lay it down on tape?

Yeah, he was in the control room.

The door was open.

And

when we were doing it, he came, stuck his head out there, said,

What are you guys doing?

And we said, just goofing around, you know, he said,

it sounded pretty good through the door.

He said, let's put it on tape, see what it sounds like.

Well, let's hear the version that was actually released of That's All Right.

Elvis Presley, my guest, Scotty Moore, on guitar.

Well, that's alright, mama.

That's alright for you.

That's alright, mama.

Just any way you do, that's alright.

That's alright.

That's alright, my mama.

Anyway you do.

Well, mama, she done told me.

Papa done told me too.

Son, that gal you foolin' wish she ain't all good for you.

But that's alright.

That's alright.

That's all I know, Mama.

Anyway, do.

Now tell me the truth.

After you started recording with Elvis, did you think this guy's a great singer?

Or were you thinking, this guy's okay.

Oh, well, we became more aware

after just three records

that

he liked to challenge.

But he was very particular about songs.

He had to get into them, feel them good.

Now,

true, most of the stuff on Sun wasn't original material.

There were some.

There were remakes of R ⁇ B and some

couple of country things like Milk Cow Blues and

things like that.

But when we went to RCA, things changed.

He was absolutely picking his own material in.

And we'd go into the session and have a stack two feet high of acetates.

And the first couple hours he would spend

going through those.

And he might listen to eight bars and zap across the room.

Then he'd listen about halfway and he'd put that in another stack to come back and listen to again.

These are what, demos that had been made?

Demos, right.

And

that's the way he did it.

And

very few times did I ever see him, that one he had kept in the maybe stack, then we would actually try,

that he would then throw it away after he heard it back.

He had that good a year.

Do you remember one of the songs that was picked out of the demo pile like that?

I think Don't Be Cruel was picked like that.

Of course, Hill and Raidens could try to keep their main writers and what they thought at the top of the stack, too.

Let me play another record from the Sun sessions, and I I thought we'd play Mystery Train.

Hey, good.

That's my signature song.

Yeah, so

tell me a little bit about what you're playing on this and what it was like to record this track.

Share some memories about it.

It was

a slow R ⁇ B song.

The Junior Parker had a lot of it.

The Junior Parker head, yeah.

And we ended up just getting the tempo up more, and I changed the rhythm thing around.

And

I've always loved it.

It's just a fun thing to do.

Hey, well, this is Mystery Train, Elvis Presley, my guest, Scotty Moore, on guitar.

Train a ride,

sixteen coaches low.

Train a ride,

sixteen coaches low.

Well, that old black train

got my baby and it gone

Train train

Coming right

here

Train train

Coming right on the baby

Well

Just joining us, my guest is guitarist Scotty Moore, who we just heard on Mystery Train.

And he's written a new autobiography called That's Alright Elvis.

When did you start realizing that Elvis was really catching on in a very emotional way with his fans?

I would say that after we did the first

couple of TV shows with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey,

after we went to the RCA,

before that, most of our shows and stuff had been all in the Southeast.

And

there had been some, granted, that starting to see the hysteria and so forth.

But

it really didn't

come home to us until we did those shows, that national exposure.

Then it just seemed like the floodgates opened up, you know.

What would you say is your most copied guitar solo from the Elvis Records?

Hmm.

Or one of the most?

Probably Heartbreak Hotel, maybe.

I don't know.

I've never been asked that before.

Can we do a survey?

Write in, folks, and tell me.

Well, why don't we go for Heartbreak Hotel?

Okay.

Tell me your memories of this session.

Well, of course, that was the first one on RCA.

They were trying to get basically the same sound that Sam was getting, had gotten with us in Mentris.

They had this

big long hallway out in the front that had the tile floor.

So they put a big speaker at one end of it and Mike at the other end and the sign do not enter.

And they use that.

That's where it ended up with that deep, real room echo instead of the tape delay echo that Salmon used.

Now there is, it's hard to hear.

There is a little tape delay on it, but either their tape machine didn't match his,

so it's just very slight, and then he ended up just with the acoustic echo.

I'll give them credit.

They didn't, I don't think they knew, or maybe they didn't think about it, but a room echo at that point was sound effects they used in the movies.

They weren't using them for recording.

And then here comes this, and it's so so drastic,

but it worked for the song.

When you say it, you know, at the end of a lonely street, it's so distant.

And I like to say this, if you don't mind, in speaking of these technical things,

one thing that Sam did that I don't believe he realized when he was doing it, and I didn't until years later that I got into engineering,

he pulled Elvis's voice back close to the music.

You know, all the Sinatra and all those things where the voice is so far out in front.

And he more or less used Elvis' voice as another instrument.

Into the mix.

Even to the mix.

But didn't bury him like a lot of the rock things, you know, later.

Right.

Now, your solo on Heartbreak Hotel, is that something you had prepared before the session?

Or is it something you had worked out?

No, no.

No.

No, everything we ever did was just

spur of the moment.

Did you learn the song at the session or did you know it before that?

No, learned it at the session.

Well, all right.

Let's hear it.

1956,

Heartbreak Hotel.

Well, since my baby left me, when I find a new place to dwell, when it's down at the end of Lone Street, that heartbreak hotel where I'll be, I'll be just a lonely baby.

Well, I'm so lonely.

I'll be just so lonely.

I could die.

Oh, though it's always crowded, and you still can find some room for broken-hearted mothers to crow there in the dream.

Be so, well, make it so lonely, baby.

Now the bellhops tears keep flowing, and the death clerks dress in black.

Well, they've been so long on the street.

They'll never, they'll never look back and think you're so

big as a lonely baby.

Well, they're so lonely,

well they're so lonely and they could die.

Well, if you're baby leaves yet, and you've got a tale to tell,

we'll just take a walk down the wall the street to heart brain hotel, but you will be

so lonely, baby.

Well, you will be lonely,

you'll be so lonely, you could die.

That's Heartbreak Hotel, my guest Scotty Moore on guitar, and he's written an autobiography, which of course includes his years playing guitar with Elvis Presley.

It's called That's All Right, Elvis.

When did you stop playing with Elvis?

And what was behind stopping?

The, well actually the 1968 special which now they call the comeback special that great TV special where he's wearing the leather jacket and the leather pants

he was I mean he would

sound from funny from man to say but he was an absolute Adonis on that show.

He looked good.

He was in great shape

and if that man had a pill in him at that point well

I'd like to perform to prove it to me.

I mean he was just and he was ready.

He was nervous because when he found out out he was going to have to, these two little groups they brought in when we did our in-around thing, that made him nervous.

But he was anxious.

He only had, I think, one more movie to finish before all the contracts were done.

And he wanted to get back performing.

That's where he was best at, what he loved to do.

When you stopped playing with Elvis, you virtually gave up the guitar for,

I don't know, close to 25 years.

24 years, right.

And I guess I can't understand that.

Well, after I um I sold my studio, then I started a tape duplicating company,

and then also an industrial printing company.

And so I was pretty busy.

I mean, there really wasn't time for

thinking about playing.

I sold all what guitars I had.

You started playing again, what, in the early 90s, was it?

92.

Mm-hmm.

And what was behind that?

Well, I'll have to back up a little bit there.

About eighteen, two years,

90, I went to a little gathering

for Carl Perkins.

Carl and I, of course, had known each other from Sundays.

I had done one session with Carl in 75.

He wrote

a song with all Elvis song titles called EP Express.

But other than that, we never had recorded anything together.

And that's when this guy asked us, said, why don't you two guys record something?

And

Carl and I looked at the the other and said, well, why not?

When you picked up your guitar about 24 years after you'd put it down to record with Carl Perkins,

had you played it?

I mean, did you remember how to play?

Had you played at home in the interim?

No, I didn't even have any guitars.

Gosh.

Can you tell me you didn't miss it those years?

I really didn't.

I've thought about that really hard.

Well, I was so busy doing other things, I I guess.

But the thing that really got me, when I realized it was in my blood,

the Elvis celebration, August of that year, 92,

I went to Memphis and did the show with Carl.

And I'm standing over in the wings.

Carl's fixing to bring me out.

And I'm thinking to myself, you're supposed to be nervous.

And I walked out and just bought me a bit.

And I was really surprised.

And that's when I told myself, but you in your blood, you might as well admit it.

Well, Scotty Moore, I'm really glad you're playing again.

And a pleasure to have the chance to talk with you.

Here, it's been a pleasure and

enjoyable.

My interview with Scotty Moore was recorded in 1997.

He died in 2016 at age 84.

After we take a short break, we'll hear from Carl Perkins, the rockabilly guitarist and singer who wrote and first recorded Blue Suede Shoes and a song the Beatles later recorded, Honey Don't.

Let's listen to the song Moore and Perkins recorded together in 1975.

This is EP Express.

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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

Let's continue our week of interviews from our archive with R ⁇ B, Rockabilly, and early rock and roll musicians and songwriters.

Up next, we have Carl Perkins, one of the originators of Rockabilly.

Perkins' singing, guitar playing, and songwriting brought together country and rock and roll.

He recorded at Sun Records, the label that also launched the careers of Elvis Presley, Cherry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Roy Orbison.

Perkins was best known for writing the song Blue Suede Shoes.

In 1956, his version of Blue Suede Shoes was a pop, rhythm and blues, and country hit.

Soon after, Elvis had a huge hit with the song.

Perkins also wrote Honey Don't, which was covered by The Beatles.

Later on, Perkins' songs were recorded by Dolly Parton, the Juds, and George Strait.

I spoke with him in 1996 after he'd written a memoir.

He died two years later at the age of 65.

Here's Perkins' recording of his best-known song, Blue Suede Shoes.

Well, it's one for the money,

two for the show,

three to get ready.

Now go, cat go, but don't you step on my blue suede shoes.

You can do anything for me off of my blue suede shoes.

Or you can knock me down, step in my face, slander my name all over the place, and do anything that you want to do.

But uh-uh, honey, lay up in my shoes, and don't you step on my blue suede shoes.

You can do anything, but lay off of my blue suede shoes.

Carl Perkins, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you, Terry.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I'd love to hear the story of how you wrote blue suede shoes.

Well, I'd love to share it with you.

It was

October the 21st, 1955.

I was playing what we call back in those days a honky-tonk.

They call them clubs now, but it was a honky-tonk where people get together and

scream and holler and dance and have a good time.

And I had not owned a pair of blue suede shoes at this point.

I'd seen a few of them around my hometown in Jackson, Tennessee.

But at the end of a song,

this couple had been dancing.

very attractive young lady and a and a cat that had on a pair of blue suedes.

And at the end of the song, he said, uh-uh, don't step on my suedes.

And it bothered me, you know, not having owned a pair.

I didn't realize that, you know, if you step on them, you kind of got to brush them off a little bit.

It discolors the toe of them.

But the thing that bothered me was he thought that much of a pair of stupid shoes to actually hurt her feelings.

So I went home that night and I just, I could not go to sleep.

I mean, I just kept seeing her face.

And she said, oh, I'm sorry.

And she really was.

And I laid down, I thought of the old nursery rhyme, one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go.

I got up, went down the concrete steps.

I was living in a government project house and I got my guitar down and I said, well there's a one for the money,

two for the show.

And I never will forget, I couldn't find any paper to write on because

we had two small children, my wife Valda, who thank God is dear with me after 44 years.

All of our folks lived close by, so I guess we had no need to have,

you know, writing paper.

So I took three Irish potatoes out of a brown paper sack.

I did.

And bless her heart, she saved that sack.

The original words, the blue suede shoes, is hanging in my den in Jackson, Tennessee.

And

I never will forget.

I called Sam Phillips at Sun Studios down here in Memphis, who had a boy by the name of Elvis who had a couple of records already out at that time.

And I said, Mr.

Phillips, I wrote me a good song last night.

He said, what is it?

I said, I guess we'll call it maybe blue suede shoes.

He said, is it anything like old them golden slippers?

I said, no, man, this is about a cat that don't want nobody stepping on it.

He said, it sounds interesting.

Now, as you pointed out, the nursery rhyme is three to get ready and four to go.

So how did it become go cat go?

Well the original line there that I came up with, I said three to get ready.

Now go man go.

I wrote the song go man go

and the first attempt I made at recording it I said go man

and Then I got excited because I could tell through the glass control window that Mr.

Phillips was liking this song.

And

I got excited and forgot the word man.

On my original record, there is a slight pause.

I said, three to get ready now.

Go, cat, go, but don't you.

The word cat flew in there instead of man.

And

after I got through with it, he said, that's it.

I said, Mr.

Phillips, I made a terrible mistake.

I called that man a cat.

He said, I heard you, and he's going to stay a cat.

This was the first rock and roll record to top the pop charts, rhythm and blues charts, and country charts at the same time.

Yeah, it was.

And a lot of people made their own recordings of blue suede shoes.

Lawrence Welk, among them.

Yeah.

He sure did.

Peewee King and the Golden West Cowboys.

There was every kind of version.

And, you know, to this day, Cherry, this song still gets

put on albums all around the world.

It's amazing.

You ought to hear it in the Japanese language.

Now of course Elvis Presley did a version of

your song.

How did he end up doing it?

When my record came out January the 2nd, 1956 of Blue Suede Shoes,

RCA Victor contacted Elvis.

They had bought him from Sun Records at that point.

And

they said, Elvis, there's a hit hit song out there you need to we want you to get in the studio and record it he said there's a lot of hits out there what are you talking about and Steve Scholz allegedly was the man who recorded Elvis back in the early part of his career at Victor

said the songs blue suede shoes he said yes sir you're right I think it's a hit song myself but that's my friend Carl Perkins and that's a son record

and he didn't want to do that song at the time they wanted him to which was in January of 1956.

He waited until April of that year letting my record do what it was going to and then he recorded it and and that was the kind of guy he was you know he could have jumped on it first

and nobody would have ever known Carl Perkins existed.

But because of the nature of this this fine individual human being named Elvis, he wanted me to have success with it and he thought I would have if he stayed off of it and that's what he did.

What do you think of his version?

I loved it.

You know, I fell into the trap.

Elvis did it faster than I did.

And I loved in the music industry, we call it the groove.

The beat that he put to it was up-tempoed from mine quite a bit.

And I loved his so much till I drifted into doing it like he did, you know, faster.

And when I met the Beatles in 1964 in England, and

we were at a party and they wanted me to do, you know, blue suede shoes, and I did.

And Harrison said, why don't you do it like you did it?

I said, well, I think I am.

He said, no, you're not.

My record was, well, it's a one for the money,

a definite two stops, you know, and Elvis was, well, it's a one for the money two for the show pow it was a one lick and Harrison was really disturbed with that he said man

you do it different than anybody ever did and now you're doing it like everybody else but I really liked Elvis's record of it I

still to this day do and I catch myself

unconsciously speeding it up to the very groove he had it.

Did you think of yourself as trying something new?

Bringing together rock and roll and country?

Well, we didn't know exactly what we were doing, Terry, but we did know that it was different.

We did know that instead of leaning back and sitting

comfortably in their theater seats or wherever we were playing, these people were scooting around moving.

Some were getting up shaking.

Young people were dancing in the aisles.

And we knew that

were we were causing a stir with this and and it wasn't as far as I was concerned or any of the guys in the early days we didn't feel like it was anything wrong with what we were doing.

Did you develop that style playing in honky tonks?

Oh yeah.

You move there because of a flying bottle or an ashtray flying at some cat's head close to the stage.

Yeah, you're on your toes playing in those places and even you know back in those years I was playing the same kind of music that was later recorded in Memphis in 54 I started playing the tonks when I was

gosh 16 17 years old and I played

I did Roy Cuffs

Great Speckle Bird or Wabash Cannonball, but I,

you know, I said, what have you, cheerful thought?

Lord I'm thinking

that old upright bass we my daddy we used to tell me he'd say son put that guitar back on the nail you are messing up mister Acuff's song he don't do it that fast and and ain't no need in you doing it and rest my mama's soul it was her who would say Buck leave the little fellow alone He's not hurting Mr.

Acuff's song and and because

of what she would say to him he backed off of me and I just always felt good

playing my songs up tempo because that's the music I heard in the cotton fields.

I picked cotton with

many many black people and we'd start singing.

They would.

And I'd start singing with them two or three o'clock in the afternoon with the sun beating down on you.

You know, I can hear Uncle John Westbrook saying, mm-hmm.

About ten rolls over, Sister One eat it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeah,

and now my little blood has started boiling.

I say, wow, they fixing the sing.

Gone lay down, my bird on the hole, pump.

The ones who didn't know the words used their voices.

And to this day, Terry, I can vividly hear that.

up-tempo gospel music.

Then I'd go home at night and get my old beat-up guitar off of the wall from the nail,

and I tried to make the strings,

you know, sound like the voices I was hearing.

When I do some glad morning, my bass string is going, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

That was filling in for the sounds of the voices I heard in the cotton fields.

We're listening back to my 1996 interview with Carl Perkins.

We'll continue the interview after a break.

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Fresh air.

This is Fresh Air.

Let's get back to my interview with Carl Perkins, one of the originators of Rockabilly.

He wrote and recorded Blue Sweet Shoes, which was also recorded by Elvis, and Honey Don't, which the Beatles later recorded.

There's a great story about how you ended up going to Memphis to record at Sun Studios.

Your wife heard Elvis Presley on the radio singing Blue Moon of Kentucky.

And she called you and she said, look, there's someone on the radio who sounds like you, because you and Elvis were both putting together country music, rhythm and blues, and

rock and roll.

And when you heard that, you went right to Memphis to the Sun Studios to see if Sam Phillips would record you too.

You're right about that.

So

was he willing to give you a shot right away?

Did you have to work hard to convince him?

If I hadn't have felt that was my only opportunity, I would have...

I wouldn't have even turned around.

I'd have put it in reverse and backed back to Jackson because he wasn't there when I walked in.

My brothers were sitting out in the car and I went into the little front office there and a lady by the name of Marin Keisler, who was Sam Phillips' secretary, who was really the lady who found Elvis Presley, she told Sam about this good-looking boy and how unique he sang.

He came in to make a record for his mama, paid $3 for it.

It was called Memphis Recording Service then.

But I walked in and I guess she could tell by looking at me that I was a hungry guitar picker.

And she said, if you come to audition, you're out of luck because we got this boy Elvis and he's more than we can handle.

Mr.

Phillips is not listening to anybody.

I said, well,

I appreciate it.

It's all right.

We sat out front for a while till he gets here.

And just a few seconds after, or a few minutes really after that, he pulled in and he got a little close to my old Plymouth because I was in his parking place and right in front door and he whipped in there in that two-tone

54

Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

I never will forget it.

It was dark blue and light blue and he got out.

He had on a dark blue pair of pleated pants with a light blue coat.

I said wow, that's either Elvis Presley or the cat that owns this place.

I beat him to the front door.

I had my foot in the door.

I said, Mr.

Phillips, I'm Carl Perkins.

That's my brother sitting there in the car, and I was talking 90 miles an hour.

We come down.

We want to make a record for you.

He said, I just, I'm too busy, man.

I just, and he told me after that, he said, Carl, I don't know why I listened to you.

I had no intentions.

I was wrapped up with what I was going to do to get records pressed of this boy Elvis.

But you look like your world would have ended.

And I said, Mr.

Phillips, it might have.

Because

my heart was, I was just aching to get in that studio.

I just felt, you know, with encouragement from my wife, I thought, I can't let Val down.

I got to get in there.

And we did.

So Sam Phillips gave you a shot.

What did he do?

Ask you to play a lot of your songs?

My brother Jay had a couple of songs that he'd written.

So

Jay started doing one that he'd written and he stopped him after about one verse.

He said, no, I've got anything else.

He did another one and got about that far and he stopped him again.

Jay liked a country singer by the name of Ernest Tubb and had developed a style like him because he loved him so much and he sounded a little bit like him.

And I never will forget.

Mr.

Phillips said,

boy, there's already an Ernest Tubb.

You need to forget about him.

Your song's pretty good, but I can't use you guys.

And I didn't realize, we didn't know, the microphone was still on, and he was back in the control room.

I said, boys, don't put them.

They started to put their instruments

back in the cases.

And I said, don't put them up.

I'm going to do him one of mine.

We can't leave here.

But he was hearing this.

And he heard a convicted little old skinny armed boy of the name of Carl Perkins.

when I got the shot,

he walked back through there.

I said, Mr.

Phillips, will you listen to one of my songs?

He said, yeah, take off.

So he stood there.

But I got real nervous because after I got past the first verse, he hadn't stopped me.

And I thought, oh, Lord, he's going to listen to the whole song.

And I got to jumping around.

And the first thing he said to me after I did that, he said, that's a cute song, I like it.

He said, can you sing standing still?

He said, you're going to have to because if you ever make a record, you're going to have to stand still.

I said, yes, sir, I can do whatever you tell me to.

And he said, well, I like that song.

Go home and write you another one in that vein and we'll talk about putting a record out.

So on the way back to Jackson in a 40-model Plymouth, I must have written 10 or 15 songs on the dashboard.

And I called him back in a couple of weeks.

I had a thing he liked.

It was a country song called Turn Around.

And that was my first record.

Well, why don't we hear Turn Around, your first recording?

And this is different from what we've heard.

This is more of a country ballad than an up-tempo rockabilly song.

Yeah.

Now, the song on the other side was a rockabilly country thing called Movie Mag.

But he liked, I tell you what, he told me, he said,

this boy Elvis is doing, I know where your heart is, but he's got that ball and going with it and I can't have two of you cats sounding a lot alike and singing this this up tempo we call it feel-good music there was no word no name for it at that point some of the hillbillies in Nashville

I think rockabilly sprang out of there they said you know them boys in Memphis are rocking our music So it got called Rockabilly and it kind of stuck there.

But he didn't feel like that he had room for Elvis and I doing the same kind of music.

So he told me, he said,

I'm going to put out this song, Turn Around.

And then he sold Elvis to RCA Victor, and he said, Now you can rock.

So that's what I came up with: Blue Suede Shoes and Honey Don't.

Oh, that's interesting.

Well, why don't we hear the country ballad that you guys have called Turn Around?

Okay.

When you're all alone and blue,

and the world looks down on you,

turn around,

I'll be following

you.

When you feel

that love is gone,

and you realize

you're wrong,

turn around,

I'll be following

you.

Turn around,

I'll be waiting

behind you

with a love that's real and never,

ever dies.

If you feel

your love will last

and you'd like to live your past

turn around,

I'll be following you.

We're listening back to my 1996 interview with Carl Perkins.

We'll hear more of it after a break.

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Fresh Air.

This is fresh air.

Let's get back to my interview with Carl Perkins, one of the early Rockabilly performers.

He wrote and recorded Blue Suede Shoes, which was later recorded by Elvis, and he wrote and recorded Honey Don't, which was later recorded by the Beatles.

After the Rockabilly era, sometime in the early 60s,

your music wasn't doing that well commercially anymore, and you decided to give up music back then.

Why did you want to give it up?

Well,

I was drinking a lot.

I was drinking because I thought

I really can't pinpoint why I got so deep into alcohol.

I thought it was erasing memories.

It was causing me maybe to

dodge the real problems that were out there for me, and that was the crowds were falling off, my music was suffering, but alcohol was causing most of this.

Thank God I had a good church-going wife who kept raising my children in the right direction and praying that I'd see the light.

And

one day I did, and life's been wonderful ever since.

But

it got bad for a while.

It sure did.

Now, after you started feeling forgotten and neglected in America, you became a real hero in England.

The Beatles did some of your songs, including Honey Don't.

Yeah.

How did you end up getting so popular there?

Did you tour England?

Yeah, I did.

I went over in 1964 with Chuck Berry, who had not been to England at that time.

And the tour was very, very successful.

And this was before the Beatles came to America, a month or two before they came.

And

I met them over there and come find out, you know,

they told me that they'd been listening to a lot of my old son records and and liked what I did and and kind of inspired them I think the inspiration I gave the Beatles was the fact that I wrote my own songs I played my own lead guitar and sang my own songs and this is what they were doing and if if I inspired them it was in that way I don't think and never will think that it was my quality of music

although there George Harrison does hit a little old licker too that I use on some of my earlier records, but he does it so much better than I ever did.

But

you're right, I have been pretty successful in England and I still go over

every year and most of the years I'll do a couple of tours over there.

Rockabilly Music's held up real well and for some reason or other

old Carl Perkins just feels good over there with those kids.

They won't set down and

I just, you know, I come alive and rock with them.

Well, I'm glad you're still recording.

I really enjoy this.

Thank you so much for talking with us.

Oh, it's been a treat, girl.

Any time, just holler.

Carl Perkins will be on this end of the line.

Thank you so very much.

My interview with Carl Perkins was recorded in 1996.

He died two years later at the age of 65.

Well, how come you say you will when you won't?

You tell me you do, baby, when you don't.

Let me know, honey, how you feel.

Tell the truth now, is love real?

Uh-uh.

Oh, honey don't.

Well, honey don't.

Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll continue our RB rockabilly and early rock and roll series with Sam Phillips, whose son record label was the first to record Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.

And we'll feature my interview with Johnny Cash.

I hope you'll join us.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Bodonato, Lauren Crenzo, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman, and John Sheehan.

Our digital media producer is Molly C.

V.

Nesper.

Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson.

Roberta Shorach directs the show.

Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.

I'm Terry Gross.

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