Blue Suede Shoes

Some songs are straight-up classics, others break entirely new ground, a handful even make their way into the wider public consciousness. But it’s debatable whether any song has left as deep an impression on popular culture as Carl Perkins’s Blue Suede Shoes. The first proper rock’n’roll hit, it became the jump-off point for everything that followed. Perkins’s close friend Elvis Presley recorded it himself soon after, taking it to the American masses via sensational TV appearances on The Dorsey Brothers Stage Show and The Milton Berle Show, and it became the opening shot of his seminal debut album of 1956. As with many of the greatest songs, Blue Suede Shoes is tied up in myth. Johnny Cash claimed he gifted Perkins the idea after a show late in 1955. Recalling CV White, a soldier he’d served with in the US Army, Cash explained that his friend took particular pride in his footwear during three-day leave. Despite being regulation black, White insisted: “Tonight they’re blue suede. Don’t step on ’em!” 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’s initial suggestion, and only conceived the song later.