Cash: The Autobiography (10 page)

handle the idea of going on stage before Carl or even opening the show (perish the thought!), Roy would just defuse it all by offering to open the show himself. He didn't care. He laughed at Jerry just as he laughed at Sam; peo- ple who took themselves seriously struck him as pretty amusing. Jerry Lee did indeed take things seriously. He'd just left Bible school when he first got to Sun, so we had to lis- ten to a few sermons in the dressing room. Mosdy they were about rock 'n' roll leading us and our audiences to sin and damnation, which Jerry Lee was convinced was happening every time he sang a song like “Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On.” “I'm out here doing what God don't want me to do, and I'm leading people to hell!” he'd declare fervently. “That's exacdy where I'm going so long as I keep on singin' this kind of stuff, and I know it.” Then he'd tell us we were all going to hell with him. Carl would disagree strongly, and the two of them would start into it, with Jerry Lee quoting chapter and verse and getting more and more worked up. Then I'd jump in, trying to mediate. “Maybe we just ought to sing whatever we sing, if they like it, and get their attention that way. Then sing them gospel,” I'd suggest. Jerry Lee would have none of that. “No, that ain't the way!” he'd protest. “You're leading them to hell first. You can't lead them to hell, then get them out again and lead them to heaven!” That happened a lot. The argument just kept coming up in one form or another and going round and round behind stages, in motels, and along highways all over North America. I believe Jerry Lee still sees it as a red-hot issue. And he may be right.

The thing about Jerry Lee is, while you may think he's conceited and self-centered, it's just that he knows he's talented, he's always known it, and he'll tell you so in case you needed to know. And of course he can be a genuine wild man. We all knew that at Sun. When the British press got themselves so worked up about his (third) marriage, in 1959—to Myra Gail, just thirteen and his cousin—and some American radio stations refused to play his records, I wasn't very surprised. I knew what an outrageous person he could be, how unpredictable. I hadn't known he was contemplating matrimony, so the news was a surprise to me, but I'd probably have had the same reaction if I'd heard he'd decided to run for president: “Well, how about that? That's my buddy!” The “blacklist” didn't scare me, by the way. I never gave it a second thought. I didn't have to worry about it anyway—I was country, not rock 'n' roll. No free Cadillacs, but no outraged guardians of public morality either. Elvis certainly took a lot of abuse from that crowd. He had his problems with gossip, too, and rumor and lies. He was very sensitive, easily hurt by the stories peo- ple told about him being on dope and so on. I myself couldn't understand why people wanted to say that back in the '50s, because in those days he was the last person on earth who needed dope. He had such a high energy level that it seemed he never stopped—though maybe that's why they said he was on dope. Either way, he wasn't, or at least I never saw any evidence of it. I never saw him use any kind of drug, or even alcohol; he was always clearheaded around me, and very pleasant. Elvis was such a nice guy, and so talented and charismatic—he had it all—that some people just couldn't handle it and reacted with jealousy. It's just human, I suppose, but it's sad. He and I liked each other, but we weren't that

tight—I was older than he was, for one thing, and mar- ried, for another—and we weren't close at all in his later years. I took the hint when he closed his world around him; I didn't try to invade his privacy. I'm so glad I didn't, either, because so many of his old friends were embar- rassed so badly when they were turned away at Graceland. In the '60s and '70s he and I chatted on the phone a couple of times and swapped notes now and again. If he were closing at the Las Vegas Hilton as I was getting ready to open, he'd wish me luck, that kind of thing—but that was about the extent of it. I've heard it said that here at the end of the century, we all have our own Elvis, and I can appreciate that idea, even though my Elvis was my friend, flesh and blood in real life. Certainly, though, my Elvis was the Elvis of the '50s. He was a kid when I worked with him. He was nineteen years old, and he loved cheeseburgers, girls, and his mother, not necessarily in that order (it was more like his mother, then girls, then cheeseburgers). Personally, I liked cheeseburgers and I had nothing against his mother, but the girls were the thing. He had so many girls after him that whenever he was working with us, there were always plenty left over. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun in general, not just with the girls. It was nice that we could make a living at it, but every one of us would have done it for free. And you know, Elvis was so good. Every show I did with him, I never missed the chance to stand in the wings and watch. We all did. He was that charismatic. Which is not to say that he always blew everyone else away. I distinctly remember, for instance, one night in Amory, Mississippi, when he had to take a backseat to Carl Perkins, even though he was the headliner. At the time Carl hadn't yet had his big hit, but he'd had “Movie Mag,” he'd played the venue several times before on his own, and they loved him. He went on first and tore the place up; the fans went absolutely nuts.

When Elvis went on, he got a fabulous reception too, but he wasn't even all the way through his first song when half the audience started shouting for Carl. It was so bad that he did only one more song before giving up. He left the stage and Carl came back on to thunderous applause. I heard later that after that night in Amory, Elvis said he'd never work with Carl again. I didn't hear him say it myself, and to me it doesn't sound like Elvis—he wasn't that small-minded—but that's what some people passed along, and it's certainly true that Carl stole his show. I went up to Carl after the show. “You did really good tonight, Carl,” I said. “I've been to Elvis's shows and I've done a couple of them with him myself, and I'll tell you, I never thought I'd ever see anyone outshine him.” “Yeah,” he replied, “but there's one thing missing.” “What's that?” “He's got a hit record, and I don't.” There was no arguing with that, and it got me think- ing. A little while later that night, I told Carl about C. V. White and the blue suede shoes. C. V. White was a black airman from Virginia I'd known in Landsberg—he told us the initials stood for “Champagne Velvet,” but none of us ever knew the truth—and one night he said this one thing that really struck me. When we got a three-day pass we'd get out our best uniforms, polish our brass, and spit-shine our shoes. C.V. would come by and say, “How do I look, man?” “Like a million dollars,” I'd tell him, and it was true. “You look great, C.V. You look really striking.” One night he laid the line on me at that point. “Well,” he said, "just don't step on my blue suede

shoes!“ ”They're not blue suede, C.V. They're air force black, like everyone else's.“ ”No, man. Tonight they're blue suede. Don't step on 'em!“ I told Carl that story and how I'd thought it had a song in it, and he took it and ran with it. He didn't record it the way I'd been thinking. My idea had been to adapt a melody from a nursery rhyme (taking a leaf out of Jack Clement's book), but I'd say Carl's version worked out pretty well. A lot has been made over the years of a rivalry between Carl and Elvis, and of course the story of ”Blue Suede Shoes“ does lend itself to that interpretation. According to the story, after Carl was put out of action by a terrible car crash while his hit was riding up the charts, Elvis recorded it himself and capitalized on Carl's success. It's one of those ”What If“ questions. If Carl had been able to ride the wave of ”Blue Suede Shoes“ all the way and follow up on it properly, could he have become as big a star as Elvis, or even bigger? I don't think so. I believe that without the accident Carl could have become a real superstar in the pop/rock- abilly world. However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain't nobody like Elvis. Never was. Carl is very special to me, very close, and we've been that way since we first met. If memory serves, that was on my second visit to Sun, when I went in to record ”Hey, Porter." We all went next door to the cafe on the corner and had a hamburger, and it was like meeting my own brother for the first time. Carl grew up in Lake County, Tennessee, right across the river about thirty miles from me, and we both had that black delta mud in our bones.

We'd been raised on the same music, the same work, the same religion, everything, and beyond all that, we were just in tune with each other. Friends for life. Carl is countrified and country-fried, as country as country can be. Listening to him, you can still place him exactly, if you know what you re hearing: southwestern Tennessee, just as I still sound like a combination of southwestern Arkansas, where my parents grew up, and northeastern Arkansas, where I myself was raised. It's rubbed off a bit because we've both been to town, but it's still there. So is the need to keep going back to our basics, one way or another: to the fundamental Christian values with which we were both raised, to the music, to the land itself, and of course to the food. I myself can't go too long without real Southern fried chicken, skillet corn bread, and all the other wonderful staples of my home food. It's one of the disadvantages of a life spent traveling internationally that that particular kind of cooking isn't much exported. You can find a burger almost anywhere in the world and dine well on French or Italian or Chinese food, but just try finding fried okra or black-eyed peas or skillet-cooked corn bread in Sydney or Singapore or Stuttgart. Some of my clearest memories of Carl and myself in the Sun days, then, are of the food on the road. When we could, we'd stop at restaurants on the highway and invariably we'd order fried chicken, roast pork sandwiches, creamed potatoes, fried okra—real country food. In a hurry, not stopping for lunch, we'd pull off at a store and stock up on bologna and cheese and crackers and Cokes. We shared a lot in the Christian values area, too. Neither of us was walking the line as Christians, but both of us clung to our beliefs. Carl had great faith, and at his depths, when he was drunkest, what he'd talk about was God and guilt—die same subjects I would bring up when I was in my worst shape. Whenever Carl drank, he'd get drunk, and he drank

often. It seemed like the Perkins car couldn't keep enough whiskey in it. And when he was drunk he would cry. He'd talk about how good his wife was, how his poor kids were back at home with nothing while he was out on the road spending all his money on whiskey. The next night there would be a show, though, and it would be, “Where's that bottle? Ah, there it is!” All the same, he was a man of his word. If you asked him for help and he agreed, he'd be there without fail. If he borrowed money from you and told you he'd pay you back Monday, that's when you got it. Carl, as all rockabilly fans know, had a family act. His brothers, Jay B. and Clayton Perkins, were in his band. Originally, in fact, Jay B. was the singer and Carl solely the guitar player, but once they got into the studio at Sun, Jay B. couldn't come up with anything to sing, so Carl took over and they recorded “Movie Mag” and “Turn Around,” Carl's first single. The only nonfamily member of the band was Fluke, W. S. Holland, on the drums. Jay B. Perkins was the tall, quiet guy who stood to the left of Carl on stage, playing rhythm on a Martin gui- tar. He was terrific; everybody loved him. He hardly spoke at all, just laughed, and he had plenty to laugh at because his brothers and Fluke were real characters, the greatest jokers you'd ever want to meet. Clayton, the youngest, was the funniest and the wildest. He'd do whacked-out stuff like stop at a gas sta- tion and stick a cigarette in his ear. The attendant would come over: “Hi. What can I do for you?” Clayton would look up at him say, “Fill up my tank and give my ear a light, will ya?” He was the only one who drank more than Carl, and

when he drank he was pretty funny up to the point where he started getting mean. While he was still funny he'd take over the mike from Carl and start singing outra- geous parodies of popular songs that he'd make up on the spot. I remember a lurid version of Ferlin Husky's “Poor Little Joe” in which he wept and moaned all over the stage. Often, usually in fact, the new lyrics would be dirty enough to get anyone banned from any stage any- where, which is pretty much what happened to the Perkins boys. Once word got around about Clayton's act, which by its nature was a spontaneous, unpre- dictable, and therefore uncontrollable event, the number of places they could play contracted greatly. Still, life in the company of Clayton Perkins was a ball. You paid for it, though. He could be very unpleasant on the other side of that bend in the road he took when he drank. All the Perkins brothers, plus Fluke and Poor Richard, another Memphis deejay, were in the car when the accident happened, on their way to do the Perry Como Show in 1956. Fluke and Poor Richard were thrown clear, but everyone was hurt to some extent. Jay B. had his neck broken. When everyone else had recovered well enough to go back on the road, he went along in a neck brace, often in agony. In those days, laughing at his brothers' antics would sometimes hurt him so badly that he'd cry at the same time. It wasn't long before he developed brain cancer, and that's what finished him. The last time I saw him was the day when Carl, Marshall, Luther, two or three other boys, and I decided to take him on a fishing trip to lift his spirits and just be with him one last time; he was about to become bedridden. We went out in two boats to just below the dam at Peakwood, Tennessee, where you could find giant catfish, fifty or sixty pounds or more, and we fished for them with big three-prong hooks baited with a whole chicken's guts and weighted down heavily to drop through the fast, turbulent water under the dam. Getting those monsters up off the bottom felt

like reeling in Sherman tanks, but we got us a few good ones, took them back to Carl's house in Jackson, and had ourselves a big fish fry. I don't remember any drinking; Carl didn't drink around his wife and children. I do remember a lot of fun with Jay B. A month or so later we went to the Ellis Auditorium in Memphis and did a show in memory of him. Carl was drunk that night. So were Clayton and a couple of other Perkins family members. I took my uncle Russell, whom I picked up in Rison on my way through Arkansas in my wonderful almost-new Lincoln. It was mid-July, a hun- dred degrees. I started up the car and turned on the air conditioner, and we went on down the road. After a while Uncle Russell said, “Boy, I'll tell you what. If I didn't know better I'd think it's getting cold in this car.” I told him the car was air-conditioned. “What's that?” he asked. It meant nothing to him. I explained. “Well, I swear, I never saw anything like it!” was his conclusion, and on we drove to mark the death and loss of Jay B. Perkins. I noticed a change in Carl after the accident. He kept on drinking and he got more morose. I think he really felt that the accident had taken away his shot at the top (which it had), and he was bitter about it. And of course Jay's death was a sad, terrible thing in his life. I tried to be sympathetic. I know how deep that wound goes.