\n<\/p>\n
As far as rock ‘n’ roll standards go, “Blue Suede Shoes” is a shoo-in.<\/p>\n
So much so that\u00a0Paul McCartney<\/a>‘s music publishing company,\u00a0MPL Communications,\u00a0has owned the rights to it, along with a number of other classics by Carl Perkins<\/a>, since 2003. McCartney once reportedly said<\/a> that “if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.”<\/p>\n Back then, rockabilly music was just coming into fashion, with “Blue Suede Shoes” being one of the first highly successful releases of the genre.<\/p>\n Perkins’ recorded the original version of the song on Dec. 19, 1955. Of course, the obvious question is: did Perkins actually own a pair of blue suede shoes?<\/p>\n There are varying accounts as for\u00a0how\u00a0Perkins came up with the subject. In Johnny Cash<\/a>‘s memoir Cash: The Autobiography<\/a><\/em>, he claimed that he’d once told Perkins about a man he had known while serving in the military. That man had referred to his government-issued airmen shoes as “blue suede shoes” and made it a point to ensure they were never stepped on or scuffed.\u00a0Another story that’s been told is of Perkins once playing a concert where he overheard a young man scold his partner for stepping on his suede shoes, which, Perkins noticed, were blue.<\/p>\n One thing that’s known for certain is that Perkins wrote the song swiftly on Dec. 17, and recorded it for Sun Records in the studio two days later.<\/p>\n Listen to Carl Perkins’ ‘Blue Suede Shoes’<\/strong><\/p>\n Just a few weeks later, “Blue Suede Shoes” hit the market on Jan. 1, 1956.<\/p>\n “Funny thing, it was ‘Honey Don’t’ on the back side that broke first in Memphis,” Perkins recalled to The Atlantic<\/em><\/a> in 1970. “Then one day the lady across the street came over and said there was a long-distance call for me. It was Sam [Phillips, producer and founder of Sun Records] and he said, ‘Carl, you know what happened? You got a hit on ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’ Chicago has ordered 25,000.’ When they said that I thought they said 2500. Never had an order so big.”<\/p>\n Not long after that, it landed at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard<\/em> Hot 100. By April, over one million copies had been sold.<\/p>\nDid Carl Perkins Actually Own Blue Suede Shoes?<\/h3>\n
Elvis Presley’s Version<\/h3>\n