This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's continue our week of interviews from our archive with R&B, rockabilly and early rock 'n' roll musicians and songwriters. Up next, we have Carl Perkins, one of ...

As far as rock ‘n’ roll standards go, “Blue Suede Shoes” is a shoo-in. Back then, rockabilly music was just coming into fashion, with “Blue Suede Shoes” being one of the first highly successful ...

In the 1956 song “Dixie Fried,” Carl Perkins sings about a razor-toting rebel rouser named Dan who storms a honky-tonk on the edge of town. Flashing a quart of moonshine and slashing through the crowd ...

CARL PERKINS: The King of Rockabilly. By Jeff Apter. Citadel Press. 240 pages. $29. Carl Perkins, the future king of rockabilly music, was the son of sharecroppers. He and his brothers grew up picking ...

"CARL PERKINS: THE KING OF ROCKABILLY" by Jeff Apter (Citadel, 240 pages, $29). Carl Perkins is an unexpected choice of subject for the prolific musician biographer Jeff Apter, who lays out the life ...

CARL PERKINS: (Singing) Well it's one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready. Now go, cat, go. But don't you step on my blue suede shoes. You can do anything but lay off my blue suede ...

Let's get back to my interview with Carl Perkins, one of the originators of rockabilly. Perkins, who died in 1998, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes," the hit song sung by Elvis Presley, which became the first ...