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Blue Suede Shoes
#2 in 1956
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Carl Lee Perkins was born on April 9, 1932, in Tiptonville,
Tennessee, as a poor tenant farmer. He was an American pioneer of
rockabilly music, a mix of rhythm and blues and country music that
evolved at Sun Records in Memphis in the early 1950s. By age seven, he
was playing a guitar his father made from a cigar box, broomstick and
baling wire. In late 1955, a desperately poor and struggling Perkins
wrote the song "Blue Suede Shoes" on an old potato sack.
Produced by Sam Phillips, the record was a massive chart success
charting #1 on the country charts, #2 on the pop charts, and #3 on the
rhythm & blues charts. However, at the peak of the song's national
success, Perkins was involved in a near-fatal car accident. Carl Perkins
died on January 19, 1998, at Jackson-Madison County Hospital, Jackson,
Tennessee, at the age of 65 from throat cancer after suffering several
strokes. |