T A B L E__T A L K

What's your favorite melancholy, rainy-day music? Croon your tune in the Music section of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Various Artists
60s Girl Groups
Ol' Skool
(01/19/98)

Various Artists
VH-1 8-Track Flashback: The One-Hit Wonders
Rhino
(01/16/98)

Mark Eitzel
Caught in a Trap and I Can't Back Out Because I Love You Too Much, Baby
Matador
(01/15/98)

Victoria Williams
Musings of a Creekdipper
Atlantic
(01/14/98)

Jimmy Rogers
The Complete Chess Recordings
MCA
(01/13/98)

BROWSE THE
MUSIC ARCHIVES

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
The presidential suite
(11/14/97)

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B O O K S

The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock
Essays on women's role in rock history, and on artists ranging from Tammy Wynette to Courtney Love
(11/18/97)

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Cash, of course, should live forever. An America without his sort would be one left finally estranged from our native, specifically rural, form of moral authority -- the one that comes from draining the cup of sin to its dregs until you decide you just plain don't care for the taste of it anymore.

Perkins was an American of another simple, once-familiar type. He was an eager-Johnny, a backwoods prodigy -- he was a good guy with simple manners, strong ambitions and a bit of a bad streak. Not the sort of bad streak that makes for a villain (or, in Cash's case, a hero), but the sort that makes for the flash and pathos of a genial small-town operator, a likable showoff with a bottle hidden on the side.

His was a pure, uncomplicated sort of cool that can't be faked. It's also one that's been pretty much driven from the landscape over the past few decades by our increasingly sophisticated entertainment media, and by the ferocious routinization of culture and personal aspect that it's brought us. We should mourn Perkins in mind of that, and honor him no less strongly than we'll honor his friend when the latter's black suit is at last folded and put away. In Perkins' own home territory, where they know him best, there's no danger of his being sent off with muted ceremony, or in ignorance. But here, in the culture bunkers of the East and West coasts, we could stand a refresher.

Perkins, along with Cash and Elvis Presley, was one of the original Sun Records rockabilly stars, recording his first session only a couple of months after Presley's. But fate wasn't as kind to him as it was to the other two. In early 1956, while supporting his hit "Blue Suede Shoes," Perkins was nearly killed in an automobile accident. In the year it took him to recover, Elvis rocketed to stardom, his version of the song eclipsing Perkins'. Elvis would later claim that if not for the accident, Carl Perkins might've been the bigger star.

Perkins' career would never rise as high again, although he would release many more 45s, some of which are now considered to be among the best rock music of all time. The Beatles would cover "Matchbox," "Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" in 1963, but Perkins would be considered a has-been in the States until 1965, when Cash took him under his wing for a string of tours. During the early '70s, Perkins had a regular slot on Cash's TV show and a gig writing songs for Cash and other country performers, which he eventually parlayed into a new recording contract. The album that resulted, 1978's "Ol' Blue Suede's Back," did fairly well, but it was with the reissue flood of the '80s, including such albums as Rhino's excellent "Original Sun Greatest Hits," that his reputation was finally cemented in the public mind.

Perkins toured with his Imarocker band (featuring sons Greg and Stan) until 1991, when he was diagnosed with lung (and later throat) cancer. After recovering, he was hospitalized again last year for a blocked carotid artery, after which he suffered a series of strokes. Perkins' death was not unanticipated: His final album, 1996's "Go Cat Go," featured performances in tribute by U2's Bono, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Willie Nelson and John Fogerty. A biography of the same name, by Rolling Stone's David McGee, appeared in May of last year. But there still promises to be far less notice of Perkins' death than the occasion demands.

Do your part: Think of him today. Remember him as a titan of rock, the likes of whom we may never see again -- and know that down in Perkins country, in Tennessee and surrounding parts, there will certainly be sightings of the man.
SALON | Jan. 20, 1998

Gavin McNett is a regular contributor to Salon.