Everybody knows the song. Almost everybody assumes Elvis Presley wrote it. He didn’t. “Blue Suede Shoes” was written by a poor farm boy from Tennessee named Carl Perkins, and in early 1956 it was about to make him one of the biggest stars in America.
Then, in the dark on a highway in Delaware, everything he had worked for was taken away from him in about four seconds — and the song went on without him.
The idea came from Johnny Cash. The two men were touring the South together in 1955, and Cash told Perkins a story from his Air Force days about a serviceman who was so proud of his shoes that he’d shout at people not to step on them. Perkins turned it into a song. He reportedly wrote it down on a potato sack, because that’s what was to hand.
It exploded. By February 1956 it was number one in Memphis. In March, Carl Perkins became the first country artist to break into the top three of the rhythm and blues charts — a genuinely historic crossover. It was Sun Records’ first million-seller. He had sold half a million copies, and a gold record was waiting for him in New York.
He was on his way to collect it. On March 22, 1956, the Perkins Brothers Band were driving overnight to New York for Carl’s first national television appearance on The Perry Como Show. In the car, they were joking about what stardom would be like. They were, by any measure, on their way.
The Story of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes” made famous by Elvis Presley, inspired by Johnny Cash
Shortly before sunrise, their driver fell asleep at the wheel. The car hit the back of a truck and went off the road into a water-filled ditch. The truck driver was killed. Carl Perkins was thrown forward and landed face down in the water, unconscious — he would have drowned there in the dark if a bandmate hadn’t rolled him over. He didn’t wake up for a full day. When he did, he had three fractured vertebrae in his neck, a severe concussion, a broken collarbone and deep cuts.
His brother Jay Perkins came off worse. He suffered a fractured neck and severe internal injuries, and he never really recovered. He was later diagnosed with a brain tumor and died in 1958.
And while Carl lay in that hospital bed, “Blue Suede Shoes” went to number one across the pop, R&B and country charts. He couldn’t tour it. He couldn’t promote it. He couldn’t go on television. His own bitter summary of it is hard to read: “I was a poor farm boy, and with ‘Shoes’ I felt I had a chance but suddenly there I was in the hospital.”
Elvis Presley – Blue Suede Shoes 1956
On April 3, 1956, still recovering at home in Tennessee, Carl Perkins watched Elvis Presley perform his version of “Blue Suede Shoes” to the whole of America on television.
But here’s the part that makes this a decent story rather than just a sad one. Elvis had asked for permission. Out of respect, he’d agreed to hold his own version back until Perkins’s had climbed the charts. And on March 23, the day after the crash, a telegram was sent to the hospital. It got misplaced and reached Carl days later. It said they’d all been shocked and were very sorry, that Elvis knew what it was like because he’d had a few bad ones himself, and that if he could help in any way, Carl should call him.
Elvis’s version made “Blue Suede Shoes” famous around the world. But over the years, Carl Perkins’s original outsold it — and the two men stayed friends for the rest of Elvis’s life.