Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.

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 1950s) 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 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a major revival of popularity that has endured to the present, often within a rockabilly subculture.

Origins[link]

There was a close relationship between the blues and country music from the very earliest country recordings in the 1920s. The first nationwide country hit was "Wreck of the Old '97",^[1][2] backed with "Lonesome Road Blues", which also became very popular.^[3] Jimmie Rodgers, the "first true country star", was known as the "Blue Yodeler", and most of his songs used blues-based chord progressions, although with very different instrumentation and sound from the recordings of his black contemporaries like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bessie Smith.^[4]

During the 1930s and 1940s, two new sounds emerged. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the leading proponents of Western Swing, which combined country singing and steel guitar with big band jazz influences and horn sections; Wills's music found massive popularity. Recordings of Wills's from the mid 40s to the early 50s include "two beat jazz" rhythms, "jazz choruses", and guitar work that preceded early rockabilly recordings.^[5] Wills is quoted as saying "Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!... But it's just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It's the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm's what's important."^[6]

After blues artists like Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson launched a nationwide boogie craze starting in 1938, country artists like Moon Mullican, the Delmore Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose began recording what was known as "Hillbilly Boogie", which consisted of "hillbilly" vocals and instrumentation with a boogie bass line.^[7]

The Maddox Brothers and Rose were at "the leading edge of rockabilly with the slapped bass that Fred Maddox had developed".^[8][9] Maddox said, "You've got to have somethin' they can tap their foot, or dance to, or to make 'em feel it." After World War II the band shifted into higher gear leaning more toward a whimsical honky-tonk feel, with a heavy, manic bottom end - the slap bass of Fred Maddox. "They played hillbilly music but it sounded real hot. They played real loud for that time, too..."^[10] The Maddoxes were also known for their lively "antics and stuff." "We always put on a show... I mean it just wasn't us up there pickin' and singing. There was something going on all the time."^[11] "...the demonstrative Maddoxes, helped release white bodies from traditional motions of decorum... more and more younger white artists began to behave on stage like the lively Maddoxes."^[12] Others believe that they were not only at the leading edge, but were one of the first Rockabilly groups, if not the first.^[13]

Zeb Turner's February 1953 recording of "Jersey Rock" with its mix of musical styles, lyrics about music and dancing, and guitar solo,^[14] is another example of the mixing of musical genres in the first half of the 1950s.

Bill Monroe is known as the Father of Bluegrass, a specific style of country music. Many of his songs were in blues form, while others took the form of folk ballads, parlor songs, or waltzes. Bluegrass was a staple of country music in the early 1950s, and is often mentioned as an influence in the development of rockabilly.^[15]

The Honky Tonk sound, which "tended to focus on working-class life, with frequently tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism, and self-pity", also included songs of energetic, uptempo Hillbilly Boogie. Some of the better known musicians who recorded and performed these songs are: the Delmore Brothers, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Merle Travis, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.^[16]

Curtis Gordon's 1953 "Rompin' and Stompin' ", an uptempo hillbilly-boogie included the lyrics, "Way down south where I was born, They rocked all night 'til early morn', They start rockin', They start rockin' an rollin'."^[17][18][19]

Tennessee[link]

Carl Perkins[link]

Carl Perkins pictured around 1955

Sharecroppers' sons Carl Perkins and his brothers Jay Perkins and Clayton Perkins, along with drummer W. S. Holland, had been playing their music roughly ninety miles from Memphis. The Perkins Brothers Band, featuring both Carl and Jay on lead vocals, quickly established themselves as the hottest band on the cutthroat, "get-hot-or-go-home" Jackson, Tennessee honky tonk circuit. Most of the requests for songs were for hillbilly songs that were delivered as jived up versions - classic Hank Williams standards infused with a faster rhythm.^[20]

It was here that Carl started composing his first songs with an eye toward the future. Watching the dance floor at all times for a reaction, working out a more rhythmically driving style of music that was neither country nor blues, but had elements of both, Perkins kept reshaping these loosely structured songs until he had a completed composition, which would then be finally put to paper. Carl was already sending demos to New York record companies, who kept rejecting him, sometimes explaining that this strange new style of country with a pronounced rhythm fit no current commercial trend. That would change in 1955^[21][22] after recording the song 'Blue Suede Shoes' (recorded 19 December 1955). Later made more famous by Elvis Presley, Perkins' original version was an early rock 'n' roll standard.^[23]

Memphis[link]

In the early 1950s there was heavy competition among Memphis area bands playing an audience-savvy mix of covers, original songs, and hillbilly flavored blues. One source mentions both local disc jocky Dewey Phillips and Sam Phillips as being influential. Scotty Moore remembers that, "You could play...As long as you could play, say, the top eight or ten songs from country, pop, R&B. They didn't care what instruments you had, as long as people could dance."^[24]

The Saturday Night Jamboree[link]

The Saturday Night Jamboree was a local stage show held every Saturday night at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium in downtown Memphis, Tennessee in 1953-54. But of more historical significance was something that was going on backstage in the dressing rooms. Every Saturday night in 1953, the dressing rooms backstage were a gathering place where musicians would come together and experiment with new sounds - mixing fast country, gospel, blues and boogie woogie. Guys were bringing in new "licks" that they had developed and were teaching them to other musicians and were learning new "licks" from yet other musicians backstage. Soon these new sounds began to make their way out onto the stage of the Jamboree where they found a very receptive audience.^[25]

The Burnettes and Burlison[link]

Younger musicians around Memphis, were beginning to play a mix of musical styles. Paul Burlison, for one, was playing in nondescript hillbilly bands in the very early 1950s. One of these early groups secured a fifteen minute show on radio station KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas. The time slot was adjacent to Howlin' Wolf's and the music quickly became a curious blend of blues, country and what would become known as rockabilly music. In 1951 and 1952 the Burnettes (Johnny and Dorsey) and Burlison played around Memphis and established a reputation for wild music. According to Burlison, "...when we started playing in 1951, we played an uptempo-style country beat with gospel, blues, and a little swing mixed in."^[26]

They played with Doc McQueen's Swing Band at the Hideaway Club but hated the type of music played by "chart musicians." Soon they broke away and began playing their energetic brand of rockabilly to small, but appreciative, local audiences. They wrote "Rock Billy Boogie," named after Johnny's new baby boy Rocky Burnette and Dorsey's new son Billy, who were both born in 1953, while working at the Hideaway.^[27] Unfortunately for the Burnettes and Burlison, they didn't record the song until 1957.^[28][29]

The trio released "Train Kept A-Rollin'" in 1956, listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top 500 rock songs of all time, having been covered by the Yardbirds, Aerosmith, and many others. Many consider this 1956 recording to be the first intentional use of a distortion guitar on a rock song, played by lead guitarist Paul Burlison.

Elvis Presley[link]

Presley's first recording, a blues song titled "That's Alright Mama", was previously recorded in 1946 by Arthur Crudup. In this recording Presley married "black" and "white" genres to an extent that it was denied airplay on (white) country radio stations and (black) R&B stations, dismissed for being defined as both "black" and "white" music. Record Producer Sam Phillips was told by country deejays that Presley's "That's Alright Mama" was "black music" and lamented they would be "run out of town" for playing it. Similarly, R&B deejays categorized it as a (white) country song. When the song was finally played by one rogue deejay, Dewey Phillips, Presley's recording created so much excitement it was described as having waged war on segregated radio stations. "The Sun recordings were the first salvos in an undeclared war on segregated radio stations nationwide." ^[30]

All of Presley's early records combined a blues song on one side and a country song on the other, but both sung in the same vein.^[31]

Presley's unique musical style rocketed him into the spotlight, and drew masses of followers: "But it's Presley's singing, halfway between a country western and a R&B rock 'n' roll style that has sent teenagers into a trance. Whether you like it or not, there will always be an Elvis Presley." (Helen McNamara, June 9, 1956 Issue Saturday Night Magazine)

Presley's first, historical recordings took place at Sun Records, a small independent label run by Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee. The historical significance of these first Presley recordings and their impact on future musical artists is well exemplified by the actions of legendary musical artist Bob Dylan, who is said to have gone to Sun Records and kissed the "x" where Elvis had stood to record his first recordings. Further stated by Dylan: "I thank God for Elvis Presley".

For several years, Phillips had been recording and releasing performances by blues and country musicians in the area. He also ran a service allowing anyone to come in off the street and for $3.98 (plus tax) record himself on a two-song vanity record. One young man who came to record himself as a surprise for his mother, he claimed, was Elvis Presley.^[32]

According to Phillips, “Ninety-five percent of the people I had been working with were black, most of them of course no name people. Elvis fit right in. He was born and raised in poverty. He was around people that had very little in the way of worldly goods.”^[33]

Presley made enough of an impression that Phillips deputized guitarist Scotty Moore, who then enlisted bassist Bill Black, both from the Starlight Wranglers, a local western swing band, to work with the green young Elvis.^[34] The trio rehearsed dozens of songs, from traditional country, to "Harbor Lights", a hit for crooner Bing Crosby^[35] to gospel. During a break on July 5, 1954 Elvis "jumped up ... and started frailin' guitar and singin' "That's All Right, Mama" (a 1946 blues song by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup). Scotty and Bill began playing along. Excited, Phillips told them to “back up and start from the beginning.” Two or three takes later, Phillips had a satisfactory recording, and released “That’s All Right,” on July 19, 1954, along with an "Elvis Presley Scotty and Bill" version of Bill Monroe's waltz, Blue Moon of Kentucky, a country standard.^[34]

Presley's Sun recordings feature his vocals and rhythm guitar, Bill Black’s percussive slapped bass, and Scotty Moore on an amplified guitar. Slap bass had been a staple of both Western Swing and Hillbilly Boogie since the 1940s. Commenting on his own guitar playing, Scotty Moore said, "All I can tell you is I just stole from every guitar player I heard over the years. Put it in my data bank. An' when I played that's just what come out."^[36]

Scotty Moore described their first session, resulting in the recording of "That's Alright Mama": "We were taking a break and, all of sudden, Elvis started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool. Then Bill Black picked up his bass and began acting the fool too, and I started playing with them. Sam had the door to the control room open, and stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' We said, 'We don't know'. He said, 'Well, back up. Try to find a place to start, and do it again'. So we kinda talked it over and figured out a little bit what we were doin'. We ran it again, and of course Sam is listenin'. 'Bout the third or fourth time through, we just cut it. It was basically a rhythm record. It wasn't any great thing. It wasn't Sam tellin' him what to do. Elvis was joking around, just doing what come naturally, what he felt." ^[37]

Tillman Franks has been quoted as saying, "I want you to give Bill Black the credit." On "That's All Right (Mama)" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" Elvis sang the way Bill Black played bass." ^[38]

Some have claimed that the sound of “That’s Alright” was not entirely new, "It wasn't that they said 'I never heard anything like it before.' It wasn't as if this started a revolution, it galvanized a revolution. Not because Elvis had expressed something new, but he expressed something they had all been trying to express."^[36] Sam Phillips indicated that for him it was a new sound, saying "It just broke me up". And many echo the sentiment that it was a sound like no other they had heard: "When I first heard Elvis singing "That's Alright Mama". The time just stood still. It knocked my socks off." --Ramon Maupin ^[39]

Nobody was sure what to call Presley's music, so Elvis was described as “The Hillbilly Cat” and “King of Western Bop.” Over the next year, Elvis would record four more singles for Sun. Rockabilly recorded by artists prior to Presley can be described as being in the long-standing country style of Rockabilly. Presley's recordings are described by some as quintessential rockabilly for their true union of country and R&B, which can be described as the true realization of the Rockabilly genre. In addition to the fusion of distinct genres, Presley's recordings contain some traditional as well as new traits: “nervously up tempo” (as Peter Guralnick describes it), with slap bass, fancy guitar picking, lots of echo, shouts of encouragement, and vocals full of histrionics such as hiccups, stutters, and swoops from falsetto to bass and back again.^[40][41]

By the end of 1954 Elvis asked D.J. Fontana, who was the underutilized drummer for the Louisiana Hayride, "Would you go with us if we got any more dates?" Presley was now using drums,^[42] as did many other rockabilly performers; drums were then uncommon in country music. In the 1955 sessions shortly after Presley’s move from Sun Records to RCA, Presley was backed by a band that included Moore, Black, Fontana, lap steel guitarist Jimmy Day, and pianist Floyd Cramer.^[43] In 1956 Elvis acquired vocal backup via the Jordanaires.^[44]

North of the Mason Dixon Line[link]

Bill Haley[link]

Bill Haley and his Comets during a TV-appearance.

In 1951 a western swing bandleader named Bill Haley recorded a version of "Rocket 88" with his group, the Saddlemen. It is considered one of the earliest recognized rockabilly recordings. Haley and his band mates crafted a rockabilly sound during this period as the Saddlemen.^[45] It was followed by versions of "Rock the Joint" in 1952, and original works such as "Real Rock Drive" and "Crazy Man, Crazy", the latter of which reached #12 on the American Billboard chart in 1953.^[46][47]

On April 12, 1954, Haley with his band (now known as Bill Haley and His Comets) recorded "Rock Around the Clock" for Decca Records of New York City. When first released in May 1954, "Rock Around the Clock" made the charts for one week at number 23, and sold 75,000 copies.^[48] A year later it was featured in the film Blackboard Jungle, and soon afterwards it was topping charts all over the world and opening up a new genre of entertainment. "Rock Around the Clock" hit No. 1, held that position for eight weeks, and was the #2 song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 1955.^[49] The recording was, until the late 1990s, recognized by Guinness World Records as having the highest sales claim for a pop vinyl recording, with an "unaudited" claim of 25 million copies sold.^[50]

Rock 'n' roll, an expansive term coined a couple years earlier by DJ Alan Freed, had now been to the pop mountaintop, a position it would never quite relinquish.^[51][52]

Bill Flagg[link]

Maine native, and Connecticut resident Bill Flagg began using the term rockabilly for his combination of rock 'n' roll and hillbilly music as early as 1953^[53] He cut several songs for Tetra Records in 1956 and 1957.^[54] "Go Cat Go" went into the National Billboard charts in 1956, and his "Guitar Rock" is cited as classic rockabilly.^[53]

Janis Martin on The Old Dominion Barn Dance Show[link]

In 1953 at the age of 13 Janis Martin was developing her own proto-rockabilly style on WRVA's Old Dominion Barn Dance,^[55][56][57] which broadcast out of Richmond, VA. Although Martin performed mostly country songs for the show, she also did songs by Rhythm and blues singers Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker, as well as a few Dinah Washington songs. "The audience didn't know what to make of it. They didn't hardly allow electric instruments, and I was doing some songs by black artists—stuff like Ruth Brown's "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean."^[58][59]

Cash, Perkins, and Presley[link]

In 1954, both Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins auditioned for Sam Phillips. Cash hoped to record gospel music, but Phillips immediately nixed that idea. Cash did not return until 1955. In October 1954 Carl Perkins and “The Perkins Brothers Band” showed up at the Sun Studios. Phillips recorded Perkins’s original song Movie Magg, which was released early March 1955 on Phillips's Flip label, which was all country.^[60]

Presley’s second and third records were not as successful as the first.^[61] The fourth release in May 1955 Baby, Let’s Play House peaked at #5 on the national Billboard Country Chart.^[62] The Sun label correctly lists “Gunter” (Arthur) as the song writer,^[63] a song which he recorded in 1954. In 1951 Eddy Arnold recorded a song titled I Want to Play House with You^[64] by Cy Coben ^[65] that sounds nothing like the Arthur Gunter song recorded by Elvis.^{[says who?]}

Cash returned to Sun in 1955 with his song Hey, Porter, and his group the Tennessee Three, who became the Tennessee Two before the session was over. This song and another Cash original, Cry! Cry! Cry! were released in July.^[66] Cry! Cry! Cry! managed to crack Billboard's Top 20, peaking at No. 14.^[67]

In August Sun released Elvis’s versions of “I Forgot to Remember to Forget” and "Mystery Train". “Forgot...”, written by Sun country artists Stan Kesler and Charlie Feathers, spent a total of 39 weeks on the Billboard Country Chart, with five of the those weeks at the #1 spot. “Mystery Train”, with writing credits for both Herman Little Junior Parker and Sam Phillips, peaked at #11.

Through most of 1955, Cash, Perkins, Presley, and other Louisiana Hayride performers toured through Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Mississippi. Sun released two more Perkins songs in October: “Gone, Gone, Gone” and “Let the Jukebox Keep on Playing”.^[68]

Scotty Moore commented on the different roles of Elvis and Perkins, "Carl was a nice-looking big hunk, like out in the cornfield type. Elvis was more like an Adonis. But as a rockabilly, Carl was the king of that."^[69]

1955 was also the year in which Chuck Berry’s hillbilly influenced Maybellene reached high in the charts as a crossover hit, and Bill Haley and His Comets’ Rock Around the Clock was not only #1 for 8 weeks, but was the #2 record for the year.^[49] Rock ‘n’ Roll in general, and rockabilly in particular, was at critical mass and the next year, Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel and Don't Be Cruel would top the Billboard Charts as well.^[70]

1956: Rockabilly goes national[link]

In January 1956 three new classic songs by Cash, Perkins, and Presley were released: "Folsom Prison Blues" by Cash, and "Blue Suede Shoes" by Perkins, both on Sun; and "Heartbreak Hotel" by Presley on RCA. Other rockabilly tunes released this month included See You Later Alligator by Roy Hall and Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On by the Commodores (no relation to the '70s Motown group).^[71][72][73]

Perkins's "Blue Suede Shoes" sold 20,000 records a day at one point, and it was the first million-selling country song to cross over to both rhythm and blues and pop charts.^[74] On February 11, Presley appeared on the Dorsey Brothers’ Stage Show for the third time, singing "Blue Suede Shoes" and “Heartbreak Hotel.” He performed “Blue Suede Shoes” two more times on national television, and “Heartbreak Hotel” three times throughout 1956. Both songs topped the Billboard charts.^[70]

Perkins first performed "Blue Suede Shoes" on television March 17 on Ozark Jubilee, a weekly ABC-TV program. From 1955 to 1960, the live national radio and TV show from Springfield, Missouri featured Brenda Lee and Wanda Jackson and guests included Gene Vincent and other rockabilly artists.

Sun and RCA weren’t the only record companies releasing rockabilly music. In March Columbia released "Honky Tonk Man" by Johnny Horton,^[75] King put out "Seven Nights to Rock" by Moon Mullican, Mercury issued "Rockin’ Daddy" by Eddie Bond,^[76] and Starday released Bill Mack's “Fat Woman”.^[77] Carl Perkins, meanwhile, was involved in a major automobile accident on his way to appear on national television.

Two young men from Texas made their record debuts in April 1956: Buddy Holly on the Decca label, and, as a member of the Teen Kings, Roy Orbison with “Ooby Dooby" on the New Mexico/Texas based Je-wel label.^[78] Holly's big hits would not be released until 1957. Janis Martin was all of fifteen years old when RCA issued a record with “Will You, Willyum” and the Martin composed “Drugstore Rock 'n' Roll”, which sold over 750,000 copies.^[79] King records issued a new disk by forty-seven year old Moon Mullican: “Seven Nights to Rock” and “Rock 'N' Roll Mr. Bullfrog”. Twenty more sides were issued by various labels including 4 Star, Blue Hen, Dot, Cold Bond, Mercury, Reject, Republic, Rodeo, and Starday.^[80]

In April and May, 1956, The Rock and Roll Trio played on the Ted Mack’s TV talent show in New York City. They won all three times and guaranteed them a finalist position in the September supershow.^[27]

Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps’ recording of "Be-Bop-A-Lula" was released on June 2, 1956, backed by "Woman Love." Within twenty-one days it sold over two hundred thousand records, stayed at the top of national pop and country charts for twenty weeks, and sold more than a million copies.^[81][82][83] These same musicians would have two more releases in 1956, followed by another in January 1957.

"Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson's first record came out in July, "I Gotta Know" on the Capitol label; followed by "Hot Dog That Made Him Mad" in November. Capitol would release nine more records by Jackson, some with songs she had written herself, before the 1950s were over.^[84][85]

The first record by Jerry Lee Lewis came out on December 22, 1956, and it featured the song “Crazy Arms” which had been a #1 hit for Ray Price for twenty weeks earlier in the year,^[86] along with “End of the Road”.^[87] Lewis would have big hits in 1957 with his version of Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On, issued in May, and "Great Balls Of Fire" on Sun.^[88]

Although Ricky Nelson records were released beginning in April 1957, his first hit record (#8) was "Believe What You Say", released in March 1958.^[89][90]

Additional performers and information[link]

There were thousands of musicians who recorded songs in the rockabilly style. An online database lists 262 musicians with names beginning with "A".^[91] And many record companies released rockabilly records.^[92] Some enjoyed major chart success and were important influences on future rock musicians.

Sun also hosted performers, such as Billy Lee Riley, Sonny Burgess, Charlie Feathers, and Warren Smith. There were also several female performers like Wanda Jackson who recorded rockabilly music long after the other ladies, Janis Martin, the female Elvis Jo Ann Campbell, and Alis Lesley, who also sang in the rockabilly style. Mel Kimbrough -"Slim", recorded "I Get Lonesome Too"^[93] and "Ha Ha, Hey Hey" for Glenn Records along with "Love in West Virginia" and "Country Rock Sound" for Checkmate a division of Caprice Records.^[94]

Gene Summers, a Dallas native and Rockabilly Hall of Fame inductee, released his classic Jan/Jane 45s in 1958-59. He continued to record rockabilly music well into 1964 with the release of "Alabama Shake".^[95] In 2005, Summers' most popular recording, School of Rock 'n Roll, was selected by Bob Solly and Record Collector Magazine as one of the "100 Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Records".^[96]

Tommy Sleepy LaBeef (LaBeff) recorded rockabilly tunes on a number of labels from 1957 through 1963.^[97] Rockabilly pioneers the Maddox Brothers and Rose, both as a group, and with Rose as a solo act, added onto their two decades of performing by making records that were even more rocking.^[98][99] However, none of these artists had any major hits and their influence would not be felt until decades later^[100]

In the summer of 1958 Eddie Cochran had a chart topping hit with "Summertime Blues". Cochran's brief career included only a few more hits, such as "Sitting in the Balcony" released in early 1957, "C'mon Everybody" released in October 1958, and "Somethin' Else" released in July 1959. Then in April 1960 - while touring with Gene Vincent in the U.K. - their taxi crashed into a concrete lamp post killing Eddie at the young age of 21. The grim coincidence in this all was that his posthumous UK number one hit was called "Three Steps to Heaven".

Rockabilly music enjoyed great popularity in the United States during 1956 and 1957, but radio play declined after 1960. Factors contributing to this decline are usually cited as: The 1959 death of Buddy Holly {along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper}, the induction of Elvis Presley into the army in 1958, and a general change in American musical tastes. The style remained popular longer in England, where it attracted a fanatical following right up through the mid 1960s.

Rockabilly music cultivated an attitude that assured its enduring appeal to teenagers. This was a combination of rebellion, sexuality, and freedom—a sneering expression of disdain for the workaday world of parents and authority figures. It was the first rock ‘n’ roll style to be performed primarily by white musicians, thus setting off a cultural revolution that is still reverberating today.^[101][102]

"Rockabilly" deviance from social norms, however, was more symbolic than real; and eventual public professions of faith by aging rockabillies were not uncommon.^[103]

As late as 1980, rockabilly still made it to the top of the charts with Queen's single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", the song considered as a mark of Freddie Mercury's admiration of Elvis's music.^[104]

Use of the term "rockabilly"[link]

In an interview that can be viewed at the Experience Music Project, Barbara Pittman states that, "It was so new and it was so easy. It was a three chord change. 'Rockabilly' was actually an insult to the southern rockers at that time. Over the years it has picked up a little dignity. It was their way of calling us 'hillbillies'."

Although the term was in common use even before the Burnettes wrote "Rock Billy Boogie", one of the first written uses of the term "rockabilly" was in a June 23, 1956 Billboard review of Ruckus Tyler's "Rock Town Rock".^[105] Three weeks earlier, "rockabilly" was used in a press release describing Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula".^[106]

The first record to contain the word "rockabilly" in a song title was issued in November 1956 — "Rock a Billy Gal".^[107]

Recording techniques[link]

Slapback, slapback echo, flutter echo, tape delay echo, echo, and reverb are some of the terms used to describe one particular aspect of rockabilly recordings.

The distinctive reverberation on the early hit records such as "Rock Around The Clock" (April 12, 1954 released May 15) by Bill Haley & His Comets was created by recording the band under the domed ceiling of Decca's studio in New York, located in a former ballroom called The Pythian Temple. It was a big, barn-like building with great echo. This same facility would also be used to record other rockabilly musicians such as Buddy Holly and The Rock and Roll Trio.^[27][108]

In Memphis Sam Phillips used various techniques to create similar acoustics at his Memphis Recording Services Studio. The shape of the ceiling, corrugated tiles, and the setup of the studio were augmented by “slap-back” tape echo which involved feeding the original signal from one tape machine through a second machine. The echo effect had been used, less subtly, on Wilf Carter Victor records of the 1930s, and in Eddy Arnold's 1945 "Cattle Call".^[109]

According to Cowboy Jack Clement, who took over production duties from Sam Phillips, "There's two heads; one records, and one plays back. The sound comes along and it's recorded on this head, and a split second later, it goes to the playback head. But you can take that and loop it to where it plays a split second after it was recorded and it flips right back into the record head. Or, you can have a separate machine and do that.. if you do it on one machine, you have to echo everything."^[110] In more technical terms a tape delay and a 7¹⁄₂-ips, instead of the more advance 15-ips.^[109] The recordings were thus an idealized representation of the customary live sound.^[111]

When Elvis Presley left Phillips’ Sun Records and recorded Heartbreak Hotel for RCA, the RCA producers placed microphones at the end of a hallway to achieve a similar effect.

A comparison of rockabilly versions of country songs shows that while form, lyrics, chord progressions and arrangements are simplified and with sparser instrumentation, a fuller sound was achieved by more percussive playing i.e. subdivisions of the beat receive more emphasis. Tempos were increased, texts are altered with deletions, additions, more intense, flamboyant loose singing, along with variation in melody from verse to verse.^[112]

Influence on The Beatles and the British Invasion[link]

The first wave of rockabilly fans in Britain were called Teddy Boys because they wore long, Edwardian-style frock coats, along with tight black drainpipe trousers and brothel creeper shoes. By the early 1960s, they had metamorphosed into the rockers, and had adopted the classic greaser look of T-shirts, jeans, and leather jackets to go with their heavily slicked pompadour haircuts. The rockers loved 1950s rock and roll artists such as Gene Vincent, and some British rockabilly fans formed bands and played their own version of the music.^{[citation needed]}

The most notable of these bands was The Beatles. When John Lennon first met Paul McCartney, he was impressed that McCartney knew all the chords and the words to Eddie Cochran’s "Twenty Flight Rock". As the band became more professional and began playing in Hamburg, they took on the "Beatle" name (inspired by Buddy Holly’s Crickets) and they adopted the black leather look of Gene Vincent. Musically, they combined Holly’s melodic pop sensibility with the rough and rocking sounds of Vincent and Carl Perkins. When The Beatles became worldwide stars, they released versions of three different Carl Perkins songs, more than any other songwriter outside the band^{[citation needed]}. (Curiously, none of these three were sung by the Beatles' regular lead vocalists — "Honey Don't" (sung by Ringo) and "Everybody's Trying to be my Baby" (sung by George) from Beatles for Sale (1965) and "Matchbox" (sung by Ringo) on the Long Tall Sally EP (1964)).

Long after the band broke up, the members continued to show their interest in rockabilly. In 1975, Lennon recorded an album called Rock 'n' Roll, featuring versions of rockabilly hits and a cover photo showing him in full Gene Vincent leather. About the same time, Ringo Starr had a hit with a version of Johnny Burnette’s "You’re Sixteen". In the 1980s, McCartney recorded a duet with Carl Perkins, and George Harrison played with Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys. In 1999, McCartney released Run Devil Run, his own record of rockabilly covers.^[113]

The Beatles were not the only British Invasion artists influenced by rockabilly. The Rolling Stones recorded Buddy Holly’s "Not Fade Away" on an early single. The Who, despite being mod favourites, was started as a Teddy Boy band ("The High Numbers") and covered Eddie Cochran’s "Summertime Blues" on their Live at Leeds album. Even heavy guitar heroes such as Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were influenced by rockabilly musicians. Beck recorded his own tribute album to Gene Vincent's guitarist Cliff Gallup — Crazy Legs — and Page’s band, Led Zeppelin, offered to work as Elvis Presley’s backing band in the 1970s. However, Presley never took them up on that offer.^[114] Years later, Led Zeppelin's Page and Robert Plant recorded a tribute to the music of the 1950s called The Honeydrippers: Volume One.^{[citation needed]}

Rockabilly revival[link]

The Elvis 1968 "Comeback" and acts such as Sha Na Na, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Don McLean, Linda Ronstadt and the Everly Brothers; the film American Graffiti and television show Happy Days created curiosity about the real music of the 1950s, particularly in England, where a rockabilly revival scene began to develop from the 1970s in record collecting and clubs.^[115][116] The most successful early product of the scene was Dave Edmunds, who joined up with songwriter Nick Lowe to form a band called Rockpile in 1975. They had a string of minor rockabilly-style hits like "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n' Roll)." The group became a popular touring act in Britain and the US, leading to respectable album sales. Edmunds also nurtured and produced many younger artists who shared his love of rockabilly, most notably the Stray Cats.^[117]

The Cramps rose out of the punk scene at the New York club CBGB, combining primitive and wild rockabilly sounds with lyrics inspired by old drive-in horror movies in songs like "Human Fly" and "I Was a Teenage Werewolf". Lead singer Lux Interior's energetic and unpredictable live shows attracted a fervent cult audience. Their "psychobilly" music influenced The Meteors and Reverend Horton Heat.^[118] The Polecats, from North London, were originally called The Cult Heroes, couldn't get any gigs at rockabilly clubs with a name that sounded "punk", so the original drummer Chris Hawkes came up with the name Polecats. Tim Polecat and Boz Boorer started playing together in 1976, they hooked up with Phil Bloomberg and Chris Hawkes at the end of 1977.^[119] The Polecats played rockabilly with a punk sense of anarchy and helped revive the genre for a new generation in the early '80s.^[120]

The Stray Cats were the most commercially successful of the new rockabilly artists. The band formed on Long Island in 1979 when Brian Setzer teamed up with two school chums calling themselves Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom. Attracting little attention in New York, they flew to London in 1980, where they had heard that there was an active rockabilly scene. Early shows were attended by the Rolling Stones and Dave Edmunds, who quickly ushered the boys into a recording studio. The Stray Cats had three UK Top Ten singles to their credit and two bestselling albums. They returned to the USA, performing on the TV show “Fridays” with a message flashing across the screen that they had no record deal in the States. Soon EMI picked them up, their first videos appeared on MTV, and they stormed up the charts stateside. Their third LP, Rant ‘N’ Rave with the Stray Cats, topped charts across the USA and Europe as they sold out shows everywhere during 1983. However, personal conflicts led the band to break up at the height of their popularity. Brian Setzer went on to solo success working in both rockabilly and swing styles, while Rocker and Phantom continued to record in bands both together and singly. The group has reconvened several times to make new records or tours and continue to attract large audiences live, although record sales have never again approached their early Eighties success.^[121]

Shakin' Stevens was a Welsh singer who gained fame in the UK portraying Elvis in a stage play. In 1980, he took a cover of The Blasters' "Marie Marie" into the UK Top 20. His hopped-up versions of songs like "This Ole House" and "Green Door" were giant sellers across Europe. Shakin' Stevens was the biggest selling singles artist of the 1980s in the UK and number two across Europe, outstripping Michael Jackson, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen. Despite his popularity in Europe, he never became popular in the US. In 2005, his greatest hits album topped the charts in England.^[122] Other notable British rockabilly bands of the 1980s included the Jets, Crazy Cavan, Matchbox, and the Rockats.^[123]

Jason & the Scorchers combined heavy metal, Chuck Berry, and Hank Williams to create a punk influenced style of rockabilly, often labelled as alt-country or cowpunk. They achieved critical acclaim and a following in America but never managed a major hit.^[124]

The revival was related to the "roots rock" movement, which continued through the 1980s, led by artists like James Intveld, who later toured as lead guitar for The Blasters, the Beat Farmers, The Paladins, Del-Lords, Long Ryders, The Last Wild Sons, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Los Lobos, The Fleshtones, Del Fuegos, and Barrence Whitfield and the Savages. These bands, like the Blasters, were inspired by a full range of historic American styles: blues, country, rockabilly, R&B, and New Orleans jazz. They held a strong appeal for listeners who were tired of the commercially-oriented MTV-style technopop and glam metal bands that dominated radio play during this time period, but none of these musicians became major stars.^[125]

In 1983, country rock singer Neil Young recorded a rockabilly album titled Everybody's Rockin'. The album was not a commercial success and Young was involved in a widely publicized legal fight with Geffen Records who sued him for making a record that didn't sound "like a Neil Young record." Young made no further albums in the rockabilly style.^[126] During the 1980s, a number of country music stars scored hits recording in a rockabilly style. Marty Stuart's "Hillbilly Rock" and Hank Williams, Jr.'s "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" were the most noteworthy examples of this trend, but they and other artists like Steve Earle and the Kentucky Headhunters charted many records with this approach.^[127]

Aspects of the revival that were not part of the original era include: music at deafening levels, women with tattoos, and enthusiasm over fashion.^[128]

Rockabilly Hall of Fame[link]

The original Rockabilly Hall of Fame was established by Bob Timmers on March 21, 1997 to present early rock and roll history and information relative to the original artists and personalities involved in this pioneering American music genre. Headquartered in Nashville.^[129]

In 2000, an International Rock-A-Billy Hall of Fame Museum was established in Jackson, TN.^[130]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rockabilly

• List of Rockabilly musicians
• Psychobilly
• Gothabilly
• Punkabilly

References[link]

v t e Country music genres Alternative country Australian country Bakersfield sound Bluegrass Country folk Country pop Country rap Country rock Cowpunk Country soul Honky tonk Lubbock sound Nashville sound Neotraditional country Outlaw country Progressive country Red Dirt music Rockabilly Texas country music Western swing Country music portal

This article may contain excessive or improper use of copyrighted material. Please review the use of non-free media according to policy and guidelines and correct any violations. The talk page may have details. (July 2011)

Carl Perkins
Background information
Birth name	Carl Lee Perkins
Born	(1932-04-09)April 9, 1932 Tiptonville, Tennessee, USA
Died	January 19, 1998(1998-01-19) (aged 65) Jackson, Tennessee
Genres	Rock and roll, rockabilly, country
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, guitarist
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1946–1998
Labels	Sun, Columbia, Mercury
Associated acts	Perkins Brothers Band Johnny Cash Elvis Presley Jerry Lee Lewis

Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998)^[1] 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."^[2] 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.

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.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Perkins was the son of poor sharecroppers, Buck and Louise Perkins (misspelled on his birth certificate as "Perkings") near Tiptonville, Tennessee.^[3] He grew up hearing Southern gospel music sung by whites in church, and by black 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 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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

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."^[2][7]

Carl was recruited to be a member of the Lake County Fourth Grade Marching Band, and because of the Perkins' 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.^[8]

During January 1947, Buck Perkins moved his family from Lake County to Madison County. A replacement radio which operated by electricity rather than a battery and the proximity of Memphis made it possible for Carl to hear a greater variety of music.^[9] At age fourteen years, using the I IV V chord progression common to country songs of the day,^[10][11] he wrote what came to be known around Jackson as "Let Me Take You To the Movie, Magg"^[12] (the song would convince Sam Phillips to sign Perkins to his Sun Records label).

Beginnings as a performer[link]

Perkins and his brother Jay had their first paying job (in tips) as entertainers at the "Cotton Boll" tavern on Highway 45 some twelve miles south of Jackson, starting on Wednesday nights during late 1946. Carl was only 14 years old. One of the songs they played was an uptempo, country blues shuffle version of Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky". Free drinks were one of the perks of playing in a tavern, and Carl drank four beers that first night. Within a month Carl and Jay began playing Friday and Saturday nights at the Sand Ditch tavern near the western boundary of Jackson. Both places were the scene of occasional fights, and both of the Perkins Brothers gained a reputation as fighters.^[13]

During the next couple of years the Perkins Brothers began playing other taverns, including El Rancho, The Roadside Inn, and the Hilltop around Bemis and Jackson as they became well known. Carl persuaded his brother Clayton to play the bass fiddle to complete the sound of the band.^[14]

Perkins began performing regularly on WTJS-AM in Jackson during the late 1940s as a sometime member of the Tennessee Ramblers. He also appeared on Hayloft Frolic where he performed two songs, sometimes including "Talking Blues" as done by Robert Lunn on the Grand Ole Opry. Perkins and then his brothers began appearing on The Early Morning Farm and Home Hour. Overwhelmingly positive listener response resulted in a 15-minute segment sponsored by Mother's Best Flour. By the end of the 1940s, the Perkins Brothers were the best-known band in the Jackson area.^[15]

Perkins had day jobs during most of these early years, working first at picking cotton, then at Day's Dairy in Malesus, then at a mattress factory and in a battery plant. He then worked as a pan greaser for the Colonial Baking Company from 1951 through 1952.^[16][17]

During January 1953, Perkins married a woman he had known for a number of years, Valda Crider. When his job at the bakery was reduced to part-time, Valda, who had her own job, encouraged Carl to begin working the taverns full-time. He began playing six nights a week. Late the same year he added W.S. "Fluke" Holland to the band as a drummer, who had not any previous experience as a musician but had a good sense of rhythm.^[18]

Malcolm Yelvington remembered the Perkins brothers from 1953 when they played in Covington, Tennessee. He noted that Carl had a very unusual blues-like style all his own.^[19] One of Carl's friends had a tape recorder, and he had used it to make tapes of his materials that he sent to Columbia and RCA. He never heard back from them.^[20]

During July 1954, Perkins and his wife heard a new release of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Elvis Presley, Scotty Moore and Bill Black on the radio.^[21], and Valda told Carl that someone in Memphis understood what he was doing and he should go see him.^[22] Later, Presley told Perkins that he had traveled to Jackson and seen Perkins and his group playing at El Rancho.^[23] As "Blue Moon of Kentucky faded out, Carl said, "There's a man in Memphis who understands what we're doing. I need to go see him."^[24]

Years later fellow musician Gene Vincent told an interviewer that, rather than "Blue Moon of Kentucky" being a "new sound", "a lot of people were doing it before that, especially Carl Perkins."^[25]

Sun Records[link]

Perkins successfully auditioned for Sam Phillips at Sun Records during early October 1954. "Movie Magg" and "Turn Around" were released on the Phillips-owned Flip label (151) March 19, 1955,^[26] with "Turn Around" becoming a regional success.^[1] With the song getting airplay across the South and Southwest, Perkins was booked to appear along with Elvis Presley at theaters in Marianna and West Memphis, Arkansas. Commenting on the audience reaction to both Presley and himself Perkins said, "When I'd jump around they'd scream some, but they were gettin' ready for him. It was like TNT, man, it just exploded. All of a sudden the world was wrapped up in rock."^[27]

Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two were the next musicians to be added to the performances by Sun musicians. During the summer of 1955 there were junkets to Little Rock, Forrest City, Arkansas, Corinth and Tupelo, Mississippi. Again performing at El Rancho, the Perkins brothers were involved in an automobile accident. A friend, who had been driving, was pinned by the steering wheel. Perkins managed to drag him from the car, which had begun burning. Clayton had been thrown from the car, but was not injured seriously.^[28]

Another Perkins' tune, "Gone Gone Gone",^[29][30] released in October 1955 by Sun,^[31] was also a regional success. It was "a bounce blues in flavorsome combined country and r.&b. idioms". ^[32] It was backed by the more traditional "Let The Juke Box Keep On Playing," complete with fiddle, "Western Boogie" bass line, steel guitar and weepy vocal.^[33]

Commenting on Perkins' playing, Sam Phillips has been quoted as saying that, "I knew that Carl could rock and in fact he told me right from the start that he had been playing that music before Elvis came out on record... I wanted to see whether this was someone who could revolutionize the country end of the business."^[34]

That same autumn, Perkins wrote "Blue Suede Shoes" after seeing a dancer get angry with his date for scuffing up his shoes.^[35] Several weeks later, on December 19, 1955, Perkins and his band recorded the song during a session at Sun Studio in Memphis. Phillips suggested changes to the lyrics ("Go, cat, go") and the band changed the end of the song to a "boogie vamp".

^[36] Presley left Sun for a larger opportunity with RCA in November, and on December 19, 1955, Phillips, who had begun recording Perkins in late 1954, told Perkins, "Carl Perkins, you're my rockabilly cat now."^[37] Released on January 1, 1956, "Blue Suede Shoes" was a massive chart success. In the United States, it scored No. 1 on Billboard magazine's country music charts (the only No. 1 success he would have) and No. 2 on Billboard's Best Sellers popular music chart. On March 17, Perkins became the first country artist to score No. 3 on the rhythm & blues charts.^[36][38] That night, Perkins performed the song during his television debut on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee (Presley performed it for the second time that same night on CBS-TV's Stage Show; he'd first sung it on the program on February 11).

In the United Kingdom, the song became a Top Ten success, scoring No. 10 on the British charts. It was the first record by a Sun label artist to sell a million copies. The B side, "Honey Don't", was covered by The Beatles, Wanda Jackson and (in the 1970s) T. Rex. John Lennon sang lead on the song when the Beatles performed it before it was given to Ringo Starr to sing. Lennon also performed the song on the Lost Lennon Tapes.^[38]

The accident[link]

After playing a show in Norfolk, Virginia on March 21, 1956, the Perkins Brothers Band headed to New York City for a March 24 appearance on NBC-TV's Perry Como Show. Shortly before sunrise on March 22 on Route 13 between Dover and Woodside in Dover, Delaware, Stuart Pinkham (aka Richard Stuart and Poor Richard) assumed duties as driver. After hitting the back of a pickup truck, their car went into a ditch of water about a foot deep, and Perkins was lying face down in the water. Drummer Holland rolled Perkins over, saving him from drowning. He had suffered three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a severe concussion, a broken collar bone, and lacerations all over his body in the crash. Perkins remained unconscious for an entire day. The driver of the pickup truck, Thomas Phillips, a 40-year old farmer, died when he was thrown into the steering wheel.^[39] Carl's brother Jay had a fractured neck along with severe internal injuries, later dying from these complications.

On March 23, Bill Black, Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana visited Perkins on their way to New York to appear with Presley the next day. D.J. Fontana recalled Perkins saying, "Of all the people, I looked up and there you guys are. You looked like a bunch of angels coming to see me."^[40] Black told him, "Hey man, Elvis sends his love," and lit a cigarette for him, even though the patient in the next bed was in an oxygen tent. A week later, Perkins was given a telegram from Presley (which had arrived on March 23), wishing him a speedy recovery.^[41]

Sam Philips had planned to surprise Perkins with a gold record on The Perry Como Show. "Shoes" had already sold more than 500,000 copies by March 22.^[42] Now, while Carl recuperated from the accident, "Blue Suede Shoes" scored No. 1 on most popular, R&B, and country regional music charts. It also scored No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and country charts. Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" scored number one on the pop and country charts, while "Shoes" did better than "Heartbreak" on the R&B charts. By mid-April, more than one million copies of "Blue Suede Shoes" had been sold.^[43]

On April 3, while still recuperating in Jackson, Perkins would see Presley perform "Blue Suede Shoes" on his first Milton Berle Show appearance, which was his third performance of the song on national television.^[44][45] He also made references to it twice during an appearance on The Steve Allen Show. Although his version became more famous than Perkins', it only scored No. 20 on Billboard's popular music chart.^[46]

Return to recording and touring[link]