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 ...

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 ...

"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 ...

On a cool October evening in 1955, Carl Perkins couldn't sleep. His friend and fellow musician, Johnny Cash, had told him about an old army buddy whose proudest possession was a pair of 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 ...

Perkins, who died in 1998, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes," the hit song sung by Elvis Presley, which became the first Sun label record to sell over a million copies. He spoke to Fresh Air in 1996. This is ...