Carl Perkins is regarded by many as one of the architects of rock 'n' roll. Although he placed only one record in the pop Top Forty, it became a legendary one in the annals of rock 'n' roll and propelled Perkins, one of the original rockabilly singers, into his legendary status. He was born Carl Lee Perkins near Tiptonville, Tennessee on 9^th April 1932. He grew up poor in a sharecropping family that picked cotton in various fields around Tiptonville. Carl learned to play the guitar as a youngster and became quite proficient at it.

He listened to hillbilly country music, gospel, and Delta blues on the family radio, and began to write some of his own compositions. At age of thirteen he performed a song that he had written, Movie Magg, at a local talent show and won. He formed a group with his brothers Jay and Clayton called the Perkins Brothers. They performed at a local honky tonk known as the El Rancho Club in 1947 and 1948. They appeared on WDXT radio in his hometown of Jackson, Tennessee, from 1950 to 1952.

Meanwhile, Carl spent many years working during the day at Colonial Baking Company in Jackson as a baker. Inspired by rising young Sun Records star, Elvis Presley, Carl signed a recording contract with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Sun Records in Memphis, in 1954. His first release was Movie Magg the following year, and other songs such as Let The Juke Box Keep On Playing and Blue Suede Shoes followed it. The latter song, which Carl wrote after overhearing a remark made at a local dance and recorded at the Sun studios in December 1955, was released on the Sun label and took off nationally.

It reached number two on the pop and country charts in 1956. The song made the twenty-three year old Carl Perkins the first white country artist to cross over to the R&B chart as well. Appearances were arranged on the Ed Sullivan and Perry Como TV shows. Perkins was at the height of his career when tragedy struck. While traveling to New York for those engagements he was involved in a terrible automobile accident that hospitalised him. Although he was back on the road in a month, another up-and-coming Sun artist's, Elvis Presley, cover version of Blue Suede Shoes had gone to  the top of the charts

These events served to steal some of the thunder from Carl Perkins' rise, and Carl never quite recovered his momentum in the world of pop, although his place in music history was assured. In 1958, Carl moved to Columbia Records where he recorded several more minor country hits, such as Dixie Fried and Boppin' The Blues. Always an excellent guitar player, he continued doing music in his own style, which was pure rockabilly. The flip side of Blue Suede Shoes was Honey Don't, which had originally been intended as the A-side.

Honey Don't, along with two more of Carl's songs, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby and Matchbox were later covered by the Beatles. A spell with Decca Records, following the death of his brother Jay in 1958, failed to revive his career and he drifted back into country material. Even though country influenced songs were crossing over to the pop charts, Carl could only manage a couple of minor pop hits with records such as Pink Pedal Pushers. By 1965, he was part of the Johnny Cash's touring troupe.

Throughout the years, he continued to record and write as well as starting his own label with his two sons, the C. P. Express. Carl also appeared in the 1985 film Into The Night. In 1992, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and a year later, following treatment, was declared cancer-free. A restaurant called Suede, of which he is part owner, in Jackson, Tennessee, is filled with his career memorabilia. He died on 19^th January 1998 after suffering a series of strokes.

Carl Perkins was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.