Carl Perkins - Rockabilly People

Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998) was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning during 1954. His best known song is "Blue Suede Shoes".

According to Charlie Daniels, "Carl Perkins' songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins' sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed." Perkins' songs were recorded by artists (and friends) as influential as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Johnny Cash, which further cemented his place in the history of popular music. Paul McCartney even claimed that "if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles."

Called "the King of Rockabilly", he was inducted into the Rock and Roll, the Rockabilly, and the Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame; and was a Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipient.



Early life

Perkins was the son of poor sharecroppers, Buck and Louise Perkins (misspelled on his birth certificate as "Perkings") near Tiptonville, Tennessee. He grew up hearing Southern gospel music sung by whites in church, and by African American field workers when he started working in the cotton fields at age six. During spring and autumn, the school day would be followed by several hours of work in the fields. During the summer, workdays were 12–14 hours, "from can to can't." Carl and his brother Jay together would earn 50 cents a day. With all family members working and not having any credit, there was enough money for beans and potatoes, some tobacco for Carl's father Buck, and occasionally the luxury of a five-cent bag of hard candy.

During Saturday nights Carl would listen to the radio with his father and hear the Grand Ole Opry, and Roy Acuff's broadcasts on the Opry inspired him to ask his parents for a guitar. Because they could not afford a real guitar, Carl's father fashioned one from a cigar box and a broomstick. When a neighbor in tough straits offered to sell his dented and scratched Gene Autry model guitar with worn-out strings, Buck purchased it for a couple of dollars.

For the next year Carl taught himself parts of Acuff's "Great Speckled Bird" and "The Wabash Cannonball", which he had heard on the Opry. He also cited the fast playing and vocals of Bill Monroe as an early influence.

Carl began learning more about playing his guitar from a fellow field worker named John Westbrook who befriended him. "Uncle John," as Carl called him, was an African American in his sixties who played blues and gospel on his battered acoustic guitar. Most famously, "Uncle John" advised Carl when playing the guitar to "Get down close to it. You can feel it travel down the strangs, come through your head and down to your soul where you live. You can feel it. Let it vib-a-rate." Because Carl could not afford new strings when they broke, he retied them. The knots would cut into his fingers when he tried to slide to another note, so he began bending the notes, stumbling onto a type of "blue note."

Carl was recruited to be a member of the Lake County Fourth Grade Marching Band, and because of the Perkins's limited finances, was given a new white shirt, cotton pants, white band cap and red cape by Miss Lee McCutcheon, who was in charge of the band.


In January 1947, Buck Perkins moved his family from Lake County, Tennessee to Madison County, Tennessee. A new radio that ran on house current rather than a battery and the proximity of Memphis made it possible for Carl to hear a greater variety of music. At age fourteen years, using the I IV V chord progression common to country songs of the day, he wrote what came to be known around Jackson as "Let Me Take You To the Movie, Magg" (the song would convince Sam Phillips to sign Perkins to his Sun Records label).

Wanda Jackson - Oueen of Rockabilly

Wanda Lavonne Jackson (born October 20, 1937) is an American singer, songwriter, pianist and guitarist who had success in the mid-1950s and '60s as one of the first popular female rockabilly singers and a pioneering rock and roll artist. She is known to many as the Queen (or First Lady) of Rockabilly.
Jackson mixed country music with fast-moving rockabilly, often recording them on opposite sides of a record. As rockabilly declined in popularity in the mid-1960s, she moved to a successful career in mainstream country music with a string of hits between 1966 and 1973, including "Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine", "A Woman Lives for Love" and "Fancy Satin Pillows".

She has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity among rockabilly revivalists in Europe and younger Americana fans, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an Early Influence in 2009.

Wanda Jackson was born to Tom Robert Jackson and Nellie Vera Jackson (December 19, 1913 – January 14, 2011) in Maud, Oklahoma, in 1937, but has lived much of her life in Oklahoma City. Her father, a musician, moved the family to Bakersfield, California, during the 1940s in hopes of a better life. Two years later, he bought Jackson a guitar and encouraged her to play. He also took her to see performances by Spade Cooley, Tex Williams and Bob Wills, which left a lasting impression. In 1948, when she was 11, the family moved back to Oklahoma. In 1956, she won a talent contest which led to her own radio program, soon extended by 30 minutes.

Jackson began her professional career while still attending Capitol Hill High School in Oklahoma City after being discovered by Hank Thompson in 1954, who heard her singing on local station KLPR-AM and invited her to perform with his band, the Brazos Valley Boys. She recorded a few songs on their label, Capitol Records, including "You Can't Have My Love", a duet with Thompson's bandleader, Billy Gray. The song was released as a single in 1954 and reached No. 8 on the country chart. Jackson asked Capitol to sign her, but was turned down by producer Ken Nelson who told her, "Girls don't sell records." Instead, she signed with Decca Records.

Stray Cats Band

The Stray Cats are an American rockabilly band formed in 1980 by upright bassist Lee Rocker, Slim Jim Phantom (drums) and guitarist Brian Setzer in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York. The group had numerous hit singles in the UK, Australia, Canada and the U.S. including "Stray Cat Strut", "(She's) Sexy + 17", "Look at That Cadillac," "I Won't Stand in Your Way", "Bring it Back Again", and "Rock This Town", which the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has listed as one of the 500 most important songs in the history of rock and roll.

Band members
- Brian Setzer - vocals, guitars, percussion
- Lee Rocker - slap bass, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
- Slim Jim Phantom - drums, percussion

Formation and move to UK
The group, whose style was based upon the sounds of Sun Records artists and other artists from the 1950s, were heavily influenced by Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent and Bill Haley & His Comets. The Stray Cats quickly developed a large following in the New York music scene playing at CBGB and Max's Kansas City as well as venues on Long Island. When the Cats heard a rumor that there was a revival of the 1950s Teddy Boy youth subculture in England, the band moved to the UK. They then spearheaded the nascent rockabilly revival, by blending the 1950s Sun Studio sound with modern punk musical elements. In terms of visual style, the Stray Cats also blended elements of 1950 rockabilly clothes, such as wearing drape jackets, brothel creepers and western shirts with punk clothes, such as tight black zipper trousers and modern versions of 1950s hair styles.

Rockabilly

This article is about the genre of music. For wrestler formerly known as Rockabilly, see Monty Sopp. For the 1957 popular song, see Rock-a-Billy (song).
Rockabilly

Stylistic origins Rock and roll, country music, western swing, honky-tonk, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, Appalachian folk music Cultural origins Early-Mid 1950s United States Typical instruments Guitar - Double bass - Drums - Piano, vocals Derivative forms

Psychobilly, punk rock, gothabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to early 1950s in the United States. It is a "blend of country & western and rhythm & blues [that] ... pointed the way to classic rock 'n' roll."[1] It has also been defined as "popular music combining features of rock 'n' roll and bluegrass."The term "rockabilly" is a portmanteau of "rock" (from "rock 'n' roll") and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "hillbilly music" in the 1940s and '50s) that contributed strongly to the style's development. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues. While there are notable exceptions, its origins lie primarily in the Southern United States.

The influence and popularity of the style waned in the 1960s, but during the late 1970s and early '80s (notably with the Stray Cats), rockabilly enjoyed a major revival of popularity. An interest in rockabilly endures even in the 21st century, often within a rockabilly subculture.