No good deed goes unpunished, and sometimes, that punishment falls on the shoulders of the deed recipient, not the good-doer. Such was the case for Carl Perkins in 1956, who experienced a dip in the charts after a cover that was supposed to be a tribute to him ended up outshining his original version. The song was the pioneering rockabilly track, “Blue Suede Shoes”, and the artist behind the tribute was the man who would later become synonymous with the song instead: Memphis’ King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presley.
While Presley’s 1956 version is the most ubiquitous rendition of “Blue Suede Shoes” today, Perkins was the songwriter and first artist to record the track. The song performed well, garnering Perkins crossover success and an increasingly firm spot at the frontline of early rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Around this time, Perkins and Presley had struck up a friendship and working relationship, sharing bills and, in the case of “Blue Suede Shoes”, swapping songs.
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Presley recorded a version of “Blue Suede Shoes” shortly after Perkins, but RCA Victor’s Stephen Sholes made an agreement with Sun Records not to release it while Perkins’ song was still performing well on the charts. The goal, after all, wasn’t to compete with Perkins. As guitarist Scotty Moore later recalled, “[Some claim] that RCA and [Elvis’ manager] Colonel Parker were trying to get Elvis to do the song. But he did it more as a tribute thing than anything else.”
A Near-Fatal Car Accident Hamstrung the “Blue Suede Shoes” Songwriter
Elvis Presley and RCA Victor upheld their promise not to release his version of “Blue Suede Shoes” as a single while Carl Perkins’ original was still high on the charts. But in the end, that favor wouldn’t do much to save Perkins’ career. Two days before the rockabilly star was to appear on The Perry Como Show, Perkins got into a near-fatal car accident with his brother, Jay Perkins, and a farmer named Thomas Phillips. Phillips, the driver, fell asleep at the wheel, hit the back of a truck, and veered off the road into a ditch with about a foot of water.
Rather than make a national television appearance that would have boosted his already successful single, Perkins spent the following days in a hospital bed. Presley, meanwhile, was busy doing the same things Perkins would have been doing, had the accident not hampered his efforts. The future King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was making promotional appearance after promotional appearance, and after a few times of performing “Blue Suede Shoes”, TV audiences inevitably began associating Presley with the song. Paired with Presley’s inimitable charm as a performer, Perkins was never able to catch up.
“I was a poor farm boy,” Perkins later recalled. “And with ‘Shoes’, I felt I had a chance. But suddenly, there I was in the hospital.” Ironically, Perkins’ original version of “Blue Suede Shoes” outperformed Presley’s as a single. After RCA issued Presley’s cover as a single in the late summer, it peaked at No. 20. Perkins’ was No. 1. But as history would show, not even a chart-topper was enough to beat the rising rockstar.
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