Despite being regulation black, White said, “Tonight they’re blue suede. During this discussion, Cash said his friend took particular pride in his footwear during three-day leave. Cash said he had a friend, CV White, who he’d served with in the U.S. According to urban legends, Johnny Cash gifted Perkins with the idea for the song after a show in 1955. While he had some modest success with releases like “Movie Magg,” it was “Blue Suede Shoes” that put him on the map. Perkins first approached Sun Records in October 1954, a record label that’s worth its own discussion in a future volume of this series. As mentioned before, rock ‘n’ roll was about selling black music to white audiences, so it’s no surprise that Perkins absorbed both hillbilly music and the blues he heard from black sharecroppers during his childhood. Even as country music was “dying,” it was during this time frame where the crossover hits were happening more rapidly than ever before.Įnter the aforementioned Perkins, a name that’s admittedly overshadowed by the other aforementioned heavy-hitters when discussing this era. It sounded refreshing for Nashville in a time when the industry was still mourning the loss of the aforementioned Williams. Yet rockabilly was simpler stuff – three-and-four-chord melodies devoid of the Tin Pan Alley polish of the time. Even Presley was a budding country star before “Heartbreak Hotel” said otherwise.īeyond that, when looking directly at country music, Hank Williams certainly infused elements of early rock ‘n’ roll and blues into his music. Rock ‘n’ roll had begun as the selling of black music to white teenagers, yet certain white rock ‘n’ roll artists (like Bill Haley) had certain country elements to their sound. In the context of the ’50s, the categories and labels were admittedly confusing. Yet that’s also looking at the situation in hindsight. On the other hand, had the industry not fought the rock ‘n’ rollers, country might have lost its identity and succumbed to rock ‘n’ roll, thus ending country music anyway. In other words, country music as a commercial genre nearly died. In 1961, there were only 81 full-time country radio stations across America. Many southern kids didn’t find they could connect with anything in country music anymore, and when they left, so did a lot of record sales. On one hand, it was a terrible commercial mistake. It’s a familiar tale, isn’t it?Īnd there’s two sides to that argument. By the end of 1961, all of the aforementioned artists were gone from the country charts. And so the story goes – these artists all make a splash, and country record promoters begin to demand that trade magazines get the young rock ‘n’ rollers off the country charts before they destroy country music. All of a sudden, artists like Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers and the focus of today’s piece, Carl Perkins, were regarded as country music acts. This discussion is timely too, as while country music had become a standard soundtrack for southern homes, that ended with the onslaught of rock ‘n’ roll. Pop Goes The Country is an ongoing feature where I discuss country music’s biggest crossover hits.Īs previously mentioned, we’re in the rockabilly era of ‘Pop Goes The Country.’ Thus far, while we’ve discussed how certain country singers like Sonny James and Marty Robbins adapted nicely to this new trend, we’re now going to look at things from the other perspective.Īnd to do that, we need to bring the focus back once again to Elvis Presley.
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