Carl Perkins Flashback:
Traffic Crash Stalls Career
March 22, 2024 - Entertainer Carl Perkins was seriously injured in a traffic
crash near Wilmington, Deleware. Carl and his band were on the way to a national
television appearance in New York City. Forced to spend months in recovery, Carl's career
was stalled. In the intervening months, fellow West Tennessean, Elvis Presley covered
Carl's Blue Suede Shoes.
Though Carl had tremendous success with the record, becoming the first singer
ever to chart simultaneously on three Billboard charts, Elvis version became so strongly
tied with Blue Suede Shoes that many music fans came to associate the song with Presley
rather than Perkins.
Carl Perkins career, though legendary, was not to achieve the recording success
first exhibited with Blue Suede Shoes. The great rockabilly debate will always be what
would Carl's career been had not the traffic crash of March 22nd not occurred.
Many, however, noting what happened to Presley and other Sun artists, feel that
long term Carl Perkins may have been able to live a better lifestyle than his more famous
counterparts.
March 22nd a career limiting curse or a life-saving day?
The Day The Music Died:
That's what some feel about March 22nd. On that day in 1952 Grand
Ole Opry star Uncle Dave Macon died in Tennessee. One of the Opry's earliest stars, Uncle
Dave personified what the Opry had been since its inception. With his death and others of
his generation, some Opry purists considered the Ernest Tubb and others with electric
instruments the purveyors of noise rather than music. For them the Opry would never be the
same.
A Beginning: March 22nd, 1958 eight-year old Hank Williams, Jr. made
his professional stage debut in Swainsboro, Georgia. A new cover industry was born and
continued until Hank finally broke the cover spell in the 1970's.
An Ending: Stoney Cooper died March 22nd, 1977.
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