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 was friends with Elvis and inspired the Beatles. But in a split second, one of rock and roll’s pioneers was nearly silenced forever ...

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 ...

Let's get back to my interview with Carl Perkins, one of the originators of rockabilly. Perkins, who died in 1998, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes," the hit song sung by Elvis Presley, which became the first ...

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 ...

Perkins, who died in 1998, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes," the hit song sung by Elvis Presley, which became the first Sun label record to sell over a million copies. He spoke to Fresh Air in 1996.