After WWII, Perkins was just 14 when he and his brother Jay began playing every barn dance, roadside tavern and honky-tonk they could book. By the end of the 40s, the Perkins family had moved closer to music’s melting pot; Memphis, Tennessee. Carl had also recruited his younger brother, Clayton to play stand-up bass and their style of up-tempo country music made the Perkins Brothers a very popular regional draw.

“With guys like Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich…and you know, we didn’t really know what we were doing. But we knew there was something in the music…that the kids were getting up and knocking dust out of them old gymnasium floors.” —-Carl Perkins

Working outside jobs to survive, Carl was writing more and in 1955 signed a record deal with a subsidiary of the Sun label; Flip Records. When you recorded and released a record in the 50s, you immediately hit the road to play ‘live’ in support of it. It was while touring with Sun label – mates Elvis and Johnny Cash, that a young Carl Perkins overheard a conversation from the stage that would inspire him to write, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ the first million-selling record for the Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records.

Back in the 1980s, I was given the opportunity to sit and talk with Carl after a festival show in Southern California; the band, which included two of his sons, was tight and Perkins couldn’t get the smile off his face. After the applause died away and he sat down to catch his breath, we started with current events. After all these years, that crowd reaction must feel really good. “I started recording in 1954.” Perkins smiles. “And have been trying to make a living out of it now for way over 40 years. You know, really when you’re out there and you look around and your kids are smiling at you and your good friends that work with you and the audience is going… Man, I don’t know how old I am. I’ll put the liniment on when the thing’s over.” (laughing) “That’s the way it goes.”

It’s not every day you get to sit next to one of the members of the ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ much less ask them questions. Not only were you in the right place at exactly the right time; you were literally in the delivery room for the birth of Rock n’ Roll. “I look back now and realize that I am a very fortunate man to have been there when the creation of Rock n’ Roll music was taking place. With guys like Elvis, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich…and you know, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We were doing what we liked to do, and we noticed that the country audiences who we were playing for and we played with the Grand Ole Opry guys; Hank Snow, Eddie Arnold, people like that. But we knew there was something in the music…that the kids were getting up and knocking dust out of them old gymnasium floors. We felt good about it and I always have. I never felt that our music contributed to the delinquency of the youth of America. I think looking back, it was so innocent and it was a good time, man. The fifties… it was a great period and some of the greatest talent in the whole world.”

Why do you think your music connected to people the way it did? “It was innocent, it made you feel good. I always felt that if my music caused that working man or woman out there, that Mr. and Mrs. America, if it caused them to forget about a car payment or a house note, if it was only for a two and half minute record then there was something about it…that wasn’t bad. And that’s what it does, how are you gonna’ worry about payin’ a phone bill if you’re…” (Carl breaks into song) “Wop-Bop-a-Lou-Bop-a-Lop-Bam-Boom Tutti Frutti! It makes you feel good.”

You can say the same about ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ “That was the first million-selling record on Sun Records, sure was. I was playing a club in my hometown. I heard a boy say that to a girl one night, a beautiful girl and they were dancing right in front of the little bandstand. I was living in a government project house at the time and I had two small children. I didn’t own a pair of the shoes, but they were getting popular in Jackson, Tennessee where I lived down around Memphis. If you saw a fella’ with a pair of them on, it’s what they called a ‘cool cat.’ And this dude did have on a pair and he told the pretty girl; ‘Un-uh, don’t step on my suede’s.’ I don’t know if it made me mad or it hurt me because she was hurt. But she said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ And I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I went home to the projects and I couldn’t go to sleep… ‘do anything, but don’t step on my blue suede shoes. And I thought of the old nursery rhyme, ‘one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go.’ I said, ‘Whoa, that’s it!’ And I got up and I took three potatoes out of a brown paper sack and wrote ‘blue S-W-A-D-E shoes, I didn’t know how to spell it. I still think it oughta’ be S-W-A-D-E!” (laughing)

You’ve performed, written or toured with some of the most talented musicians on the planet; everybody from the Judd’s to Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, just incredible. Tell us a little about your friend, Chuck Berry? “I was talking to somebody the other day, back in ’56 I did a tour with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino. It was called the ‘Stars of ’56’ and I remember it so vividly now, that being the first artist on Sun to sell a million records, Sam Phillips, the guy who owned the label gave me a new Fleetwood Cadillac and Chuck wanted to ride in it with me. I said, ‘Sure man!’ Many mornings we would leave a hotel going to another town, he’d say, ‘Hey Carl, I started me one last night…how this go, ah ‘flying across the desert in a TWA, I seen a woman walking across the sand.’ I said, ‘Oh man, that’s great!’ Then the next day he said, ‘I finished it’ and he’d sing it and then out would come the record. This man has written…I think he’s the Shakespeare of Rock n’ Roll music, I really do. If you tear the tune away from his songs, you still got beautiful poetry, man. ‘Two men out in the bottom of the third, there was a high fly into the stands, around third base he was struttin’ for home, it was a brown-eyed handsome man.’ You can’t top it, you know?” (laughing)

Perkins’ music has been an influence to almost every major artist of the past 60 years from the Beatles and the Stray Cats to Ricky Nelson and U2. His songs have been recorded by everyone from Elvis and Jimi Hendrix to Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline. “A few days ago I was at home and the phone rang and my wife says, ‘Carl, it’s George Harrison.’ I said, ‘Thee George Harrison?’ She says, ‘Yeah. And he sure is nice.’ She had never met him or heard him talk. I got on the phone and sure enough it was…and he has asked me to play in London. George is having the tenth anniversary of his Handmade Film Company. He said I’ve invited all the people who have worked in my films; Madonna, gosh he mentioned so many great people, big stars…Faye Dunaway. And he said since I’m going to do that, I’m going to invite some of our people, too. He said Phil Collins will be there, Jeff Lynn, Eric Clapton…I said, ‘that’s enough, son! Don’t tell me anymore, I’m getting scared!”(laughing) “As it turned out, I’m scheduled to be in Norway and Sweden, I start a tour over there the 12th. Let me call you back tomorrow. So I called the promoter and told him about it…so George is sending a jet to Norway the morning of the 23rd; we’ll do that and then fly back to Sweden and do four more days. And I’m doing the promoter an extra day to get to do it.

I know this maybe the highlight of my career. I spoke to George about filming it and I’m in the process of putting me an HBO Special together, another one, you know? I did a thing for CINEMAX, which is owned by HBO. George was on that, Ringo and other people, so he told me on the phone, ‘let’s just tape it, let’s film it and go for it.’ He said I’m gonna’ have three or four musicians on the show and after you do your performance would it be alright if some of us start coming up there…? Oh, God! It probably could turn out to be a very, very big thing. I’m excited!”

Carl Perkins with George Harrison -1985 ‘Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby

As you look back on how far you’ve come and the music you’ve created…the people you’ve influenced…any life lessons you can share? “I’ll tell you and I’m very sincere. It’s a very humbling thing for me to every once in a while realize they may be telling me the truth when they say, ‘Carl, I was listening to you play on ‘Matchbox’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and I decided that’s what I want to do.’ I’ve been so fortunate; the Good Lord has come a long way with this old man, I started with my two brothers and now two of my sons are out there with me. I tell you, music…I often say from the stage, ‘You don’t grow old if you like Rock n’ Roll, man. Just hit the beat and GO!” (laughing)

Perkins battled lung and throat cancer in the early 90s, and like every other challenge in his life, he fought through it. But complications from multiple strokes ended his life in Jackson, Tennessee on January 19, 1998. The ‘King of Rockabilly’ was 65 years old.

The post The King of Rockabilly – Carl Perkins appeared first on Traveling Archive.

I’m sharing a touching video (see below) about a little girl who sees for the first time. It reminded me of the Gospel passage of Jesus healing a blind man (John 9) which I studied recently. If you don’t want to hear heavy stuff move on the joke section. I just have to get this off my chest.

We’ve all experienced a desire for things seemingly unattainable: a brand new home, a car, hi-tech toys, the latest fashion assortment, etc. … and they need not just be material things. They could be relationships: a loving family, a Prince Charming, a best friend, etc. For the blind man, it was a humble request to function just like everybody else.

Imagine what it was like to wake up everyday in darkness. To not even know how your food looks. To not be able to run free. To rely on sound and smell, taste and touch because those were your only tools.

Then one day, a stranger opens your eyes and you see light for the first time. You see your hands — “so that’s what they look like.” You see art and writing on flat paper. You see colors — “so that’s red blood, green grass and brown dirt. (“I can’t believe nobody told me my blue shoes don’t match my green robe — just kidding!“)

But before you have time to discover more things, you see angry, disbelieving faces, talking loudly at you because somehow you are finally like everybody else. Who invited you to their club? They ask you questions but you have no answer. They insist you fit into their limited realities and dismiss the preponderous possibility of a miracle. You suggest an answer they refuse to consider.

“You were born completely in sin! How is it that you dare to teach us?” Then they expelled him.
— John 9: 34

Many of us, even those in high scholarly places, carry wrong (deeply ingrained) assumptions that lead to the inability to realize we could be wrong thus depriving us of ever finding the truth.

Jesus said, “I have come into the world to exercise judgment so that those who don’t see can see and those who see will become blind.”

Some Pharisees who were with him heard what he said and asked, “Surely we aren’t blind, are we?“

Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you wouldn’t have any sin, but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
— John 9: 39-41

Did you get that? Jesus challenged them to dig into their assumptions and if they insist that they didn’t need to be taught, then yeah — “they’re blind indeed!”

Let’s ask ourselves: Are we blind to our assumptions? Do we refuse to listen because ideas do not fit our reality? Are we noisy parrots that have little original thought? Are we blind?

Since birth, the blind man was in the minority of a population that could see the physical world. After he gained his sight, he experienced an unexpected paradigm shift because he was again in the minority in a world that was spiritually blind.

TGIF people!

Southern Talk

Contributed by Naomi of N Hollywood, CA

North Carolina
A man in North Carolina had a flat tire, pulled off on the side of the road,
and proceeded to put a bouquet of flowers in front of the car and one behind it.Then he got back in the car to wait.

A passerby studied the scene as he drove by, and was so curious he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was.

The man replied, “I got a flat tahr.”
The passerby asked, “But what’s with the flowers?”
The man responded, “When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back. I never did understand it neither.”

Tennessee
A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65.
The trooper asked, “Got any ID?”

The driver replied, “Bout whut?”

Texas
The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up
into the ditch. The Sheriff asked, “Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don’t you see that sign right over your head?”

“Yep,” he replied. “That’s why I’m dumpin’ it here, ‘cause it says:
‘Fine For Dumping Garbage.’”

Y’all kin say whut y’all want ‘about the South, but y’all never heard o’ nobody retirin’ an’ movin’ North.  Have ya?

TGIF Videos

Girlfriend Massage vs. Wife Massage
Sent by Raffy of Manila

You can already guess which is the preferred massage.

Watch Video

Baby Sees For the First Time
Sent by Leo of Taipei, Taiwan

There are shorter videos that lead up to that amazing moment but the buildup is just as good. It’s a modern man-made-miracle.

Watch Video

Parting Shot

Thanks to Mel of Washington, D.C. who shared this photo

More exciting than Curling

The post Southern Talk appeared first on Traveling Archive.

World-renowned Nashville has always opened its doors to an astonishing musical mish-mash of Western, Country, Hillbilly, Honky-Tonk, Swing, Rockabilly, and Blues ala BB King. It is home as well to gifted musicians who sing or play instruments from cowboy guitars to passionate Hoedown fiddles, and fervent songwriters with talent to share. Musicians and songwriters fully understand that to perform and be recognized in this city that has captured the spirit of music is an impressive accomplishment, a resume highlight, and perhaps a life changer.

Located on the meandering Cumberland River in north central Tennessee, distinguished for its passionate personality keenly shared with visitors and music aficionados alike, Nashville offers more than 150 live showcase clubs and venues, but beneath this diverse showy façade is a persistently nonchalant attitude toward performers, where in the key of F Sharp, the city can tear a creative heart to shreds. The Nashville heart breaker is created by songwriters and performers hoping for the next step upward, who most often pack up with heads hanging and catch the next bus for home, not unlike the bright-eyed actors who pop into Hollywood with their headshots and quickly realize life is crammed with hard knocks.

A Cowpoke songwriter from Montana who learned to ride horseback before he could walk upholds Nashville’s country roots when he strolls into town adorned with weather-worn Levi’s, a 1978 Jack Daniels brass belt buckle, scuffed pointed boots, a black Wyomin’ Stetson showing a tinge of back country dust, a tattered Railroad Timepiece tucked in the front watch pocket, and a plug of chaw in his cheek. Embracing his revered 1947 Gibson J-50 guitar he picked up years ago in Bakersfield, and with a collection of original songs in his back pocket, he is eager to perform.

He’s the real deal given that country music was engraved in his soul while sitting around a flickering campfire after a day on the range listening to crusty cowpokes sing and play guitar accompanied by a weather-beaten fiddle with a missing E string. Lean and weathered and unnoticed, he is overwhelmed by a thriving city where high-rise buildings are clustered together in a changing cityscape, while construction cranes move like a conductor’s baton across the horizon in rhythm to rock music that is booming from downtown clubs.

The Cowpoke-songwriter recalls that Dolly Parton arrived in Nashville from the Great Smoky Mountains in 1969 with a cardboard suitcase full of original songs followed by Country songwriters Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw, Keith Urban and Kris Kristofferson, and a host of others. He whispers to himself, “Songs are the bedrock of country music, so why not me?” Country music is deeply entrenched in the soul of the city with the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the George Jones Museum, the Musician’s Hall of Fame & Museum, and Studio B, the historic RCA Recording Studio celebrated ever since Elvis recorded Heart Break Hotel there. A whopping 35,000 songs were recorded over the course of some 40 years.

Nashville is that kind of place, tagged with the sobriquet “Music City U.S.A”. Live music is heard in every corner of the city, and lines are formed not at the DMV or the supermarkets but at the Grand Ole Opry House on Opryland Drive. The Opry opened for business in 1925 in the historic Ryman Auditorium, Nashville’s Mother Church, showcasing the best in country music, and moved to the spacious 4,400-seat Grand Ole Opre House in March, 1974. For performers lacking a track record as well as the songwriter from Montana who still has songs to share, the venue is a tough nut to crack, as is the Ryman which presents some 200 concerts a year.

After a few days browsing the city and chatting with Nashvillians, he’s surprised to discover the flip side of Nashville, and the dynamism and passion of a city in transition with 17 universities and colleges headed by the University of Vanderbilt and prestigious Belmont University which was ranked as a “Most Innovative” University by U.S. News & World Report. Belmont is world-renowned for their College of Entertainment and Belmont School of Music where students major in Music Business, Audio Engineering, and Performance.

Upon entering a nicely lit gallery aptly named the Gig on the campus of Belmont, the Cowpoke’s heart skips a beat. Before him are 100 elegantly displayed rare and historically significant guitars and stringed instruments each with detailed captions, the total collection of 500 instruments valued at $10.5 million. Sitting on a stool in the main gallery with guitar in hand he runs through two of his charts singing on pitch with a slight vibrato to a round of applause.

Standing and smiling, he says, “Someone wrote that writing a song is like having your heart broken time and time again,” pauses and continues, “There are a thousand ways to create a song like the Nashville Sound, Tennessee River Music, Mountain Music, the Bakersfield Sound, and Pop Country, just attempt to find one.”

The city’s creativity and energy is experienced in the galleries, concerts, and fine dining rooms that fill the city center, and in the distinguished Schermerhorn Contemporary Center, home to Nashville’s 83-member ensemble that performs 170 concerts annually, focusing on contemporary American music. A Nashvillian said, “Even our baseball team the Nashville Sounds is named for the music associated with the city, so if a visitor doesn’t care for music such as the Nashville Symphony or even a little Bluegrass or Church Soul, they can always go bowling.”

Endowing the city with a touch of history, the palace-like Hermitage Hotel, 1910, sweeps one back to an era of last century elegance with their grand lobby noted as one of the most beautiful public rooms in America with exquisite cornice work, marble wall panels of Russian walnut, and a cut stained glass ceiling in the vaulted lobby. Eight former presidents have visited the hotel, some booking an overnight, others enjoying the Capitol Grille. Presidents aside, Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, at the height of his career checked in booking a separate room for his horse, Champion; afternoon tea not required.

After a five-day visit and with the help of a few contacts, the Montana Cowboy is allowed to perform two original songs at the legendary Bluebird Café on a Monday Open Mic Night. After an order of Smoke Pork Sliders, a Cow in a Blanket and Fried Green Tomatoes, he plays two songs before a listening crowd urged not to talk or use cell phones during a performance.

The intimate room has a reputation for hosting songwriters; with its small round tables crowding the bandstand, a strand of white Christmas lights blazing behind the performers, and t-shirts hanging in the window, its reputation spans the world of country music. The Cowpoke got his shot in Nashville, one that ended with smiles all around; hopefully, there will be another.

www.visitmusiccity.com

www.thehermitagehotel.com

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