Carl Perkins
A special panel discussion and performance to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes” will be presented by The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on April 9 at 2 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater. This celebration of Perkins’ signature song—and his influential career—will take place on what would have been his 84th birthday. Perkins died in 1998.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the creation and first recording of the rockabilly classic “Blue Suede Shoes” by Perkins. In 1956, “Blue Suede Shoes” set sales records for Sam Phillips’ Sun label just weeks after Elvis Presley left Sun for RCA. The recording achieved the rare distinction of climbing the national charts in three genres: pop, country, and R&B. “Blue Suede Shoes” is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone’s “Greatest Songs of All Time” and the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.
A panel discussion about Perkins will include his son Stan Perkins (Carl’s longtime drummer), close friend Naomi Judd (of the Judds, for whom Perkins wrote the #1 hit “Let Me Tell You About Love”); David McGee (co-author, with Carl Perkins, of Go, Cat, Go!: The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, the King of Rockabilly); Peter Guralnick (author of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll), and moderator Dr. Mark Crawford (associate professor of music at Tennessee State University).
Chuck Mead (founding member of BR5-49 and music director for the stage musical Million Dollar Quartet) will perform a brief set with his band.
Presented in support of the museum’s exhibition Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll: The Cosmic Genius of Sam Phillips, the program is included with museum admission and free to museum members. The interview and performance will be streamed live at countrymusichalloffame.org/streaming.
