He hollered, Rave on, children, I’m with ya!
Rave on, cats, ” he cried
It’s almost dawn and the cops are gone
Let’s all get Dixie fried
When Carl Perkins comes up, Blue Suede Shoes is naturally the song most people think of. It’s one of the records that helped define rockabilly and early rock and roll. I love that song but Carl was much more than that. So, I dug a little deeper.
This one sounds like it came straight out of a Saturday night honky-tonk where things might get a little out of hand before closing time.
Carl Perkins was from Tiptonville, Tennessee, in 1932 and grew up surrounded by country music, gospel and the blues. By the time he arrived at Sun Records in Memphis, he had already absorbed all of it. That’s what made those early Perkins records so good. You can call them country, rockabilly or rock and roll, but the lines weren’t nearly as clear then as they became later.
Perkins wrote “Dixie Fried” with Howard “Curley” Griffin, a singer and disc jockey from Jackson, Tennessee. The song was recorded at Sun in 1956 and released as a single that August, backed with I’m Sorry, I’m Not Sorry. It reached number 10 on Billboard’s country and western chart.
The timing was interesting. Perkins had just scored a huge hit with “Blue Suede Shoes,” but his career had been interrupted by the terrible automobile accident in March 1956 while he and his band were traveling to New York for a television appearance. Perkins was injured and his brother Jay was hurt even more seriously. This is an honest song, it came from the world Perkins knew.
He later remembered some of the rough honky-tonks around Jackson where the band played. There could be chicken wire around the musicians and the jukebox to protect them from flying bottles. Behind the bar might be an axe handle ready for anyone who didn’t understand when it was time to leave.
Listen to this song with that picture in your head.
The song isn’t somebody imagining what a wild Southern honky-tonk might have been like. Perkins had been in those places. The music has that same feeling. It’s loose and raw and sounds as if it could fall apart at any second, but it never does.
That’s one of the things I like about those Sun recordings. Sam Phillips didn’t polish everything until the personality disappeared. You can hear the room. You can hear the musicians working together. Most importantly, you can hear Carl Perkins.
Perkins never had another record as commercially successful as Blue Suede Shoes, but his influence went much further than the charts. The Beatles were huge fans and recorded several of his songs. George Harrison was especially influenced by his guitar playing, and Perkins became one of those musicians that other musicians studied.
Jim Dickinson later covered Dixie Fried, which gives me another connection to this song. Dickinson played piano on the Rolling Stones’ Wild Horses and later produced Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers. I’ve featured his version of this song before by him, so apparently this song has been following me around for a while.
This may not be the Carl Perkins song everybody knows. That’s probably another reason I like it. It sounds like rock and roll before anybody had figured out exactly what rock and roll was supposed to sound like.
I would have loved to hear Carl Perkins in one of those 1950s bars/taverns.
Dixie Fried
Well on the outskirts of town, there’s a little night spot
Dan dropped in about five o’clock
Pulled off his coat, said “The night is short.”
He reached in his pocket and he flashed a quart
And hollered, “Rave on, children, I’m with ya!
Rave on, cats, ” he cried
It’s almost dawn and the cops are gone
Let’s all get Dixie fried”
Now, Dan got happy and he started raving
He jerked out his razor, but he wasn’t shaving
And all the cats knew to jump and hop,
‘Cause he was born and raised in a butcher shop
He hollered, “Rave on, children, I’m with ya!
Rave on, cats, ” he cried
“It’s almost dawn and the cops are gone
Let’s all get Dixie fried.”
The cops heard Dan when he started to shout
They all ran in to see what it was about
And I heard him holler when they led him away
He turned his head, and this is what he had to say
Hollered, “Rave on children, I’m with ya!
Rave on, cats, ” he cried
“It’s almost dawn and the cops are gone
Let’s all get Dixie fried”
Now, Dan was the bravest man that we ever saw
He let us all know he wasn’t scared of the law
And through the black crossed bar he tossed a note to his dig
It said “It ain’t my fault, hun, that I’m in here”
But hollered, “Rave on, children, I’m with you!
Rave on, cats, ” he cried
It’s almost dawn and the cops ain’t gone,
And I’ve been Dixie fried
