TALES OF LOHR: JEFF APTER'S "CARL PERKINS: THE KING OF ROCKABILLY"

Thoughts on a new biography of a rock and roll pioneer

Much like Jim Gordon, the mightily gifted, tragically doomed drummer about whom rock journalist Joel Selvin recently penned a well-received biography, pioneering rockabilly singer / songwriter Carl Perkins (1932-1998) is a favorite musician of a lot of your favorite musicians. As the composer of “Blue Suede Shoes” (he wrote the original lyrics down on the side of an old potato sack), he provided friend and one-time Sun Records labelmate Elvis Presley with one of his most enduring early hits. On their own rise to the top of the charts, The Beatles recorded memorable versions of three of Perkins’ compositions: “Honey Don’t,” “Matchbox,” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby.” George Harrison was such an admirer of Perkins’ prowess on the guitar that, in his earliest days with the Fab Four, he briefly adopted the stage pseudonym of Carl Harrison. Perkins was the stalwart touring and television guitarist for Johnny Cash, another Sun veteran, for the better part of a decade, and in what can only be considered an off-center form of compliment, Chuck Berry expressed amazement, upon first meeting Perkins, that the man who had created such dynamic proto-rock records was not in fact himself Black.