- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- The Best of Carl Perkins is a Russian album released in the same year that the Soviet Union collapsed. Carl Perkins is the quintessential rockabilly musician.
Carl Perkins – The Best of Carl Perkins (1991): This album sure caught my attention when I ran across it: The Best of Carl Perkins is a Russian release complete with Cyrillic lettering that came out in the same year that the Soviet Union collapsed. Carl Perkins is the quintessential rockabilly musician, and he wrote and recorded “Blue Suede Shoes” in late 1955 – not only was “Blue Suede Shoes” the first million-selling hit released by Sun Records, it is also the first song in history to reach the top of all of the American record charts. In 1956, “Blue Suede Shoes” was recorded by Elvis Presley, mostly in tribute to his friend Carl Perkins; and it became one of Elvis’s best-known early songs.
“Blue Suede Shoes” was chosen by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”; and in 1986, Carl Perkins’ version of “Blue Suede Shoes” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The “B” side of the original “Blue Suede Shoes” single is “Honey Don’t”, with “Honey Don’t” being one of two Carl Perkins songs recorded as a single by the Beatles in late 1964, with lead vocals by Ringo Starr; the other being “Everybody’s Trying to be My Baby”, with lead vocals by George Harrison. The success of these Beatles singles helped to revive Carl Perkins’ career. Other classic songs written or co-written by Carl Perkins on The Best of Carl Perkins include “Matchbox”, “Boppin’ the Blues”, and “Movie Magg”. Probably with the Russian audience in mind, about one-half of the songs on The Best of Carl Perkins are Carl Perkins’ covers of 1950’s classics recorded by others, such as “Tutti Frutti”, “Whole Lotta Shaking Goin’ On”, “Sitting on the Top of the World”, “Hey Good Looking”, and “Long Tall Sally”.