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 ...

CARL PERKINS: The King of Rockabilly. By Jeff Apter. Citadel Press. 240 pages. $29. Carl Perkins, the future king of rockabilly music, was the son of sharecroppers. He and his brothers grew up picking ...

“Carl Perkins: The King of Rockabilly” by Jeff Apter, Citadel Press, 240 pages, $29. Readers fortunate enough to have spent their adolescence during the 1950s will certainly remember singer Carl ...

As far as rock ‘n’ roll standards go, “Blue Suede Shoes” is a shoo-in. Back then, rockabilly music was just coming into fashion, with “Blue Suede Shoes” being one of the first highly successful ...

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 ...

Up next, we have Carl Perkins, one of the originators of rockabilly. Perkins' singing, guitar playing and songwriting brought together country and rock 'n' roll. He recorded at Sun Records, the label ...