<\/p>\n As with many of the greatest songs, Blue Suede Shoes is tied up in myth. Johnny Cash<\/a> claimed he gifted Perkins the idea after a show late in 1955. Recalling CV White, a soldier he\u2019d served with in the US Army, Cash explained that his friend took particular pride in his footwear during his three-day leave. Despite being regulation black, White insisted: \u201cTonight they\u2019re blue suede. Don\u2019t step on \u2019em!\u201d Cash said he thought there might be a song in it. Perkins remembered it differently. In his autobiography, Go, Cat, Go!, he wrote that he shrugged off Cash\u2019s initial suggestion, and only conceived the song later.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n In 2015, 60 years after recording Blue Suede Shoes at Memphis\u2019 fabled Sun Studios, the last surviving member of Perkins\u2019s band set the story straight.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear three or four different versions of nearly everything that happened back then,\u201d chuckled drummer WS \u2018Fluke\u2019 Holland. \u201cIn 1955 we were all on the same booking agency, so the Cash and Perkins bands became really close buddies on tour. This particular time we were driving John\u2019s green fifty-three Plymouth in Arkansas, with Carl and John in the back. He propped his leg up on the back of the front seat and said: \u2018Carl, we oughta write a song about some shoes.\u2019 A little bit further on he went: \u2018Why don\u2019t we write it about some blue suede shoes?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The incident wasn\u2019t mentioned again, claims Holland, until they\u2019d all arrived home a few days later and the Perkins band were playing a tiny club in Jackson. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a stage,\u201d said Holland, \u201cso we just set up in the corner, with Carl\u2019s amplifier on the floor. Somebody danced real close to the amplifier, and we heard this boy howl at his girlfriend: \u2018Don\u2019t step on my new shoes!\u2019 Carl went home that night and wrote the words to Blue Suede Shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n Having run through the song with the rest of the band, studio time was booked for December 19. Perkins had already recorded two 45s for Sun boss Sam Phillips: Movie Magg and Let The Jukebox Keep On Playing. The first was pure rockabilly, the second a loping ballad. Blue Suede Shoes was different. Just over two minutes of hip-slapping rhythm, driven by stop-go verses and the fiery treble of Perkins\u2019s guitar, it was a mongrel mix of blues, country and pop. One that defined a new era of anything-goes rock\u2019n\u2019roll.<\/p>\n Holland didn\u2019t recall much tinkering in the studio, although he did confirm the story that Phillips changed the pivotal intro line from \u2018go, man, go!\u2019 to \u2018go, cat, go!\u2019 He also conceded that Blue Suede Shoes is far from perfect: \u201cWe weren\u2019t actually good enough to work up some kind of arrangement, we just did it the only way we knew how. If you listen to it real close you\u2019ll hear that the intro is not musically correct; there are pauses between each of the phrases \u2013 \u2018One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go cat go\u2019 \u2013 and that was because I didn\u2019t know how to count in. But that\u2019s one of the things that made Sun Records such a big deal. When Sam heard something different, he wouldn\u2019t try to correct it. He\u2019d always leave it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Released on New Year\u2019s Day 1956, by March the single had reached the Billboard Top 100, where it peaked at No.2, kept off the top spot by Elvis\u2019s Heartbreak Hotel.<\/p>\n Perkins became the first country artist to cross over into both the national and R&B listings. Moreover, Blue Suede Shoes gave Sun Records its first million-seller, and Phillips rewarded Perkins with a Cadillac, a gesture celebrated decades later in Carl Perkins\u2019 Cadillac by Drive-by Truckers.<\/a> The single\u2019s success was enough to set nerves jangling over at RCA, Elvis\u2019s new home. Label boss Chet Atkins supposedly confided to Phillips: \u201cWe thought for a while we\u2019d bought the wrong Sun artist.\u201d<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Carl Perkins – Blue Suede Shoes (1972) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Alas, Perkins was never able to capitalise on Blue Suede Shoes. While the original version was still high in the charts, he and the band were en route to New York to appear on Perry Como\u2019s TV show when their car crashed into a poultry truck in Delaware. The truck driver was killed, Jay Perkins broke his neck and sustained internal injuries, while Carl fractured his shoulder and skull.<\/p>\n The accident meant that Perkins was denied the opportunity of being the first rockabilly star to appear on national TV. By the time he\u2019d recuperated, he\u2019d also missed a prestigious slot on Ed Sullivan\u2019s show. But the effects of the crash went beyond his professional life. Brother Jay never fully recovered and, two years later, he died from a brain tumour. Distraught, Carl turned to drink.<\/p>\n The influence of Blue Suede Shoes, meanwhile, was profound. Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and Eddie Cochran all covered it soon after. As a testament to the song\u2019s enduring power, others who have recorded versions over the years include Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles<\/a>, Plastic Ono Band, Lemmy, Black Sabbath<\/a>, the Grateful Dead<\/a>, Bruce Springsteen<\/a> and Helloween.<\/p>\n The song continued to give its creator an enormous sense of pride. \u201cAfter all those days in the cotton fields, the dreams came true on a gold record,\u201d Perkins once remarked, remembering his childhood amid the sharecropper poor of Tennessee. \u201cIt\u2019s in my den where I can look at it every day. I wear it out lookin\u2019 at it.\u201d<\/p>\n This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 211, published in May 2015. WS \u2018Fluke\u2019 Holland died in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some songs are straight-up classics, others break entirely new ground, a handful even make their way into the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-280740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"Carl](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770914595_203_maxresdefault.jpg\")
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