Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session

You don’t get more rockabilly than Carl Perkins. This concert was a show built around the man. The guests that showed their support were Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Roassane Cash. Plus you had Stray Cats Slim Jim Phantom on drums and Lee Rocker on bass.

It’s pretty cool to see these other legends openly admiring Carl Perkins. Most grew up with his songs and they show their appreciation.

Dave from A Sound Day featured the Roy Orbison concert in the eighties which was a little later on than this one. I remember both of them and this one I watched at a friend’s house at the time on VHS.

Carl Perkins Rockabilly Session

Everyone takes a turn singing Carl Perkin’s classic songs in this one. It was filmed at London’s Limehouse Studios in front of a live audience on October 21, 1985. It’s a great show and Carl Perkins hadn’t lost a thing on guitar. Perkins was around 53 at the time.

They had Johnny Cash, Rob Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis do a quick intro for Perkins at the beginning. It’s the bottom video on this post.  They also played at The Capitol Theater in New Jersey on September 9, 1985. You can find that one on YouTube also.

Carl Perkins: “Nothing in the music business has even come close to this for me. At times I felt I was going to break down crying.”

Here are the guest Musicians:

  • Carl Perkins (guitar, vocals)
  • George Harrison (guitar, vocals)
  • Ringo Starr (drums, tambourine, vocals)
  • Eric Clapton (guitar, vocals)
  • Dave Edmunds (guitar, vocals, musical director)
  • Rosanne Cash (vocals, maracas)
  • Phantom, Rocker & Slick {Slim Jim Phantom (drums), Lee Rocker (double bass), Earl Slick (guitar)}

Backing Musicians

  • Mickey Gee (guitar)
  • Geraint Watkins (piano)
  • John David (bass guitar)
  • Dave Charles (drums)
  • Greg Perkins (bass guitar)

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

36 thoughts on “Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session”

  4. thanks for the mention and link! When you can get two Beatles and a Clapton , not to mention Edmunds et al, out to be in your backup band for a night, you must have done something very right!

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    1. The New Jersey show was confusing…they happened around a month apart…but the one in London is the one they made the video of…it’s really pure rockabilly.

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  7. I’ll try to find time to watch this … some line-up. (Coincidentally, after me saying I’d just picked up a 2nd hand copy of an Joe Ely album at the week, I also bought a Dave Edmunds album too!

    (The other two I bought were a live double album by Loggins & Messina andone by The Ozrak Mountain Daredevils from @ 1975 … you’ve not got something in the pipeline for either if them too, have you? 😉 😀 )

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  10. Great concert video! George’s big Gretsch hollowbody is perfect for this. I like that he didn’t start with everyone on stage. Sometimes those guitarfests just get too crowded, with some getting drowned out, some stepping on each other, others not sure what to do or just getting too densely-packed. Two basses? Great – almost as good as Taj Mahal’s four tubas.

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  13. Perkins emanates energy and it energizes everyone else. Watching him asking Geo and Eric to step up and hearing their responses is truly thrilling and Geo looks like he’s in heaven. I saved the whole concert to watch later.

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  14. Max, this is incredible. To watch Carl Perkins with these great guests, and they’re all having a ball on that stage literally just made my day. My only regret is I didn’t have a chance to see it earlier. The energy and joy is electrifying – that’s something that comes from the heart, which you can’t fake!

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      1. That was long before my time! 🙂

        Out of curiosity, I also just looked it up. According to Wikipedia, the north Jersey venue opened in 1921 was closed in 1989 and demolished(!) in 1991. Now, it’s a shopping center – what a shame!

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