Search - Carl Perkins :: Carl Perkins - Original Sun Greatest Hits

Rave On & Bop Cat Bop

Carl Savich | Detroit, MI, USA | 07/11/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Carl Perkins' album ORIGINAL SUN GREATEST HITS is a must own album. This album is essential in any rock and roll collection. The Sun singles/45s on this collection represent the seminal hits of Carl Perkins from 1954 to 1957 when he recorded for Sam Phillips' Sun Studios in Memphis.



First, let me say that Rhino chose a very bad photo for the cover of this album. The LP and cassette versions featured a different and much better cover. Carl Perkins played a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop electric guitar on many of his earliest and most influential recordings. A photo from 1956 should have been chosen that shows Perkins playing the Les Paul guitar. Also, the single "That's Right" (co-written with Johnny Cash) was left off as were the ballads "Turn Around" and "Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing". The selection, however, is the best of any Perkins release up to that time.



When Carl Perkins released BLUE SUEDE SHOES on January 1, 1956, the record instantly shot to no. 2 on the Billboard pop amd r and b charts. Ironically, Elvis Presley kept it from going to no. 1 with his hit HEARTBREAK HOTEL! But Perkins' BLUE SUEDE SHOES was no. 1 on the Billboard country charts for 3 weeks! The record became the first million-seller or gold record at Sun. Not even Elvis was able to achieve this at Sun! BLUE SUEDE SHOES became one of the greatest and most influential records in rock and roll history! It was covered not only by Elvis, but by Bill Haley and the Comets, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, The Beatles, John Lennon and Eric Clapton as the Plastic Ono Band, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Pat Boone, and Johnny Rivers (who had a top 40 hit with it in the 1970s. Cliff Gallup said that he went into rock and roll after he heard Perkins' BLUE SUEDE SHOE. Bob Dylan listed Perkins as one of his greatest musical influences on his first album and said his music represented freedom. Dylan later co-wrote a song with Perkins called CHAMPAIGNE, ILLINOIS. The Grateful Dead also performed a Carl Perkins song in concert. Chuck Berry even used a line from Perkins' song and Perkins' nursery rhyme motif in ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN. Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps based their entire style on just this one Carl Perkins'record (Perkins' originated the phrases: "go cat go", "bop", "bop cat bop", "rock", "get it cat", "cat clothes", etc.). To show the influence of Carl Perkins' on the Beatles, the following songs are listed which the Beatles recorded: "Sure to Fall" (Beatles Live at the BBC), "Matchbax" (Capitol single in 1964), "Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying to be My baby" ("Beatles 65" album or For Sale in UK), "Blue Suede Shoes"(Beatles' Anthology 3, Live Peace in Toronto by John Lennon)), "Lend Me Your Comb" (Anthology 1). Perkins had a major impact on the Beatles as a songwriter, a guitarist, and a singer. He also wrote DADDY SANG BASS (no.1 for 6 weeks on the country chart)and THE BALLAD OF BOOT HILL for Johnny Cash, SO WRONG for Patsy Cline, which reached no.14 on the country chart and no.85 on the pop chart in 1962, and LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT LOVE (a country no. 1)for The Judds in 1989.



The records selected are among Perkins' best sides ever. DIXIE FRIED (with the RAVE ON refrain) is a record way ahead of its time with even a rap style 25 years before rap! The record features Perkins' chainsaw style electric guitar that was very influential on George Harrison and Eric Clapton. This song was ripped off by Buddy Holly for RAVE ON. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin recorded a cover version of this song in 1968 as did George Thorogood and the Destroyers and the Kentucky Headhunters. It is one of the greatest rock records ever released.



MATCHBOX is based on a phrase from an old blues song by Blind Lemon Jefferson. But Perkins wrote new music, a new rock rhythm for it and new lyrics. Jerry Lee Lewis plays piano on this record and provides the pumping and driving rhythm which he would later use for his own records. But it should be pointed out that the Killer derived this rhyhm from Carl Perkins. The Killer is also on YOUR TRUE LOVE and CAT CLOTHES, an insane rockabilly rave up that was originally unreleased. HONEY DON'T was originally the flip side of BLUE SUEDE SHOES and features the rhythm Perkins developed for the early Sun singles. BOPPIN' THE BLUES was the follow-up to BLUE SUEDE SHOES and is a great rock record. The B side to that single was ALL MAMA'S CHILDREN, co-written by Johnny Cash that develops Perkins' nursery rhyme motif ("There was an old woman that lived in a shoe..."). MOVIE MAGG was Perkins' first release on the Sun subsidiary Flip. The song was later covered by Paul McCartney on the RUN DEVIL RUN album. The record features Perkins' jangling guitar sound. EVERYBODY'S TRYING TO BE MY BABY is a great guitar jam that has the theme of groupies and rock and roll stardom. It was a filler on Perkins' Sun album that came out in 1957.



This album features some of the greatest and most infleuntial sides released on Sun records. BLUE SUEDE SHOES by Carl Perkins is definitely one of the greatest and most influential records ever released in America!In 1986, the Grammys inducted Perkins' recording into the Grammy Hall of Fame (so it even won a Grammy). These Sun sides can stand up to the best sides of Elvis, Little Richard, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, or anyone else who recorded in the 1950s. The records are that good! This is the best that rock and roll has to offer. I would recommend this collection to anyone who is a fan of rock and roll. This is the real stuff, the real deal. In my opinion, these are perhaps the greatest sides in 50s rock and roll! Certainly, Perkins needs to take a back seat to no one! Go Cat Go, indeed! But honey don't you step on my blue suede shoes...."

Carl Perkins: A Great Perfomer And A Great Human Being

bix lang | Davenport, Iowa USA | 09/16/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are a fan of rockabilly or if you're simply interested in the roots of rock and roll, then you must purchase Carl Perkins: Original Sun Greatest Hits." Back in the late 1940s Carl Perkins along with his brothers were already playing and singing a combination of Country & Western and Rhythm and Blues that would become known years later as Rockabilly. Long before Elvis Presley unleashed his mile-high pompadour and mile-long sideburns on the world of popular music, Carl Perkins was bopping along with a great beat and an innovative guitar style. From "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" to "Honey Don't" and "Lend Me Your Comb," Perkins' vocals and twangy guitar sound were something new and hip. Many people who know Perkins solely as the composer and performer of the early rock classic "Blue Suede Shoes," will be pleasantly surprised to discover that there was much more to this man's appreciable talents than one era-defining song. Perkins had a strong tenor-cum-baritone that could shatter your wine-filled old fruit jar. He also wrote most of his tunes (unlike Presley who was neither a composer nor musican, although his handlers had him pose many times with a guiitar as a prop). But most of all, Perkins played the heck out of his Gretsch and Gibson guitars. If you were an early rock and roller wannabe, you had two innovators to emulate: Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins. Everyone else had to file in behind these two pioneers (Cliff Gallup might have qualified as the third member of this exclusive coterie except that he decided to quit the msuic business only months before he and Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps hit the big time with "Be Bop A Lula"). Besides being a fine talent, Perkins was a wonderfully nice man with a kind heart. Virtually everyone who knew him corroborated this fact. Perkins was born into a literally dirt-poor sharecropper family in 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression. His first guitar was a homemade contraption comprised of a broomstick and twine. He played bars and honky-tonks throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s with modest success. When Perkins began making a name for himself in 1955 a stroke of terrible luck befell him. On his way to perform his new hit record "Blue Suede Shoes" on the Ed Sullivan Show, he and his band were in a horrible automobile accident outside of Wilmington, Delaware that left his brother dead and Perkins himself in critical condition. Only weeks later, Perkins, still in a body cast in a hospital bed, suffered the disappointment and indignity of watching the newcomer Elvis Presley perform "Blue Suede Shoes" on the Ed Sullivan Show. Who knows what might have been if that auto accident had not occurred and the world got to see Perkins doing "Blue Suede Shoes" rather than Presley? Perkins never became a giant commercial success but he nonetheless became a successful performer and a Rockabilly icon who was hailed by many younger Rock and Rollers (including the Beatles) as a true musical innovator. When he died at the age of 66 in 1998, Perkins was a legendary figure. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy or a more talented performer."

Good overview of Rockabilly pioneer's early sides

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 03/16/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"16 swinging tracks from one of Rockabilly's best, masterfully prepared by Rhino's champion Bill Inglot. This disc covers Perkins' Sun years, from 1955 through 1957, and you can hear Sun studio pianist Jerry Lee Lewis pounding away on several of these tracks.The music runs from classic rockabilly to country, including a large dose of standards such as Perkins-penned "Blue Suede Shoes" "Honey Don't" (two sides of the SAME single, jeez) "Boppin the Blues" "Everybody's Trying to be My Baby" "Put Your Cat Clothes On" and "Matchbox" (a Blind Lemon Jefferson tune that Perkins wrote new lyrics for). Other great rockabilly sounds include "All Mama's Children" "Your True Love" "Dixie Fried" "Glad All Over" (not the DC5 tune) and "Gone, Gone, Gone." Great slap bass is the rule here.Also included are a couple of nice country tunes such as Perkins' first Sam Phillips released single (on the FLIP label) "Movie Magg" and "Sure to Fall" (with Jay Perkins on lead vocals).Overall, an impressive collection from an artist whose fame (though not his contribution at the genesis of Rock 'n' Roll) was somewhat eclipsed by the charisma of his labelmate."