Carl Perkins: The King of Rockabilly

Biographer Apter (Don’t Dream It’s Over) delivers a ho-hum biography of Carl Perkins (1932–1998), the singer and guitarist who shaped the rockabilly genre. Honing his skills in Tennessee honky-tonks in the 1940s and early ’50s, Perkins developed a “hard and fast” musical style designed to hold an audience’s attention, laying the foundation for the energetic rockabilly style for which he became known. He made his mark with 1956’s “Don’t Step on My Blue Suede Shoes,” which shot up the pop, country, and R&B charts. Yet just as his star began to rise, a car crash halted his momentum, ushering in a yearslong run of bad luck on which Apter lingers: a new record label stymied Perkins’s freewheeling recording style, and he was overshadowed by flashier, rockabilly-adjacent stars like Elvis Presley (Apter paints a particularly pitiful scene of a hospitalized Perkins watching Elvis perform “Blue Suede Shoes” on TV). Perkins later revived his career with appearances on The Johnny Cash Show and other programs, though he never achieved the commercial success of some of his peers. While Perkins’s contributions to rock are undeniable, Apter’s portrait of a genial and undervalued artist feels two-dimensional, sanitizing less-savory aspects of his life, including a mid-career bout with alcoholism. This one’s best suited to ardent rockabilly fans. (Nov.)