Carl Perkins – The Greatest Hits Of Rock ‘n Roll (Comp. 1987)

If you are a fan of rockabilly or if you're simply interested in the roots of rock and roll, then this album is a must have.

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.

Tracklist:

01. Blue Suede Shoes
02. Honey Don't
03. I'm Walkin'
04. Matchbox
05. Susie Q
06. Memphis
07. Maybelline
08. Slippin' and Slidin'
09. Bebopalula
10. Roll Over Beethoven
11. Hound Dog
12. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
13. Lucille
14. Jailhouse Rock
15. All Shook Up
16. That's Alright Mama
17. Bird Dog
18. Rock Island Lin

Sound Quality: 7