Rockabilly is 1950s country music infused with the hard-edged rhythms of Rhythm & Blues. Nobody represents the rockabilly sound better than Carl Perkins. As a child, he listened to the sounds of Roy Acuff and other country stars of the Grand Ole Opry. He also heard the Western Swing sound of Bob Wills. But right next to him, growing up in the cotton fields of Tiptonville, Tennessee, were African-American sharecroppers who sang blues and gospel. These sounds came together in Perkin’s own music. Perkins had some regional hits, but it was “Blue Suede Shoes” that brought the sound to the nation. It perfectly added rhythmic elements of R&B to a country song. This is rockabilly.

Perkins wasn’t the only one combining these sounds. Two other guitar-playing singers, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, had grown up in a similar environment. For them, the sounds of the blues mixed naturally with hillbilly country music. All three of these artists ended up at Memphis Sun Studios where they were recorded by Sam Phillips. Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Lee Riley, and Roy Orbison weren’t far behind. Soon, there were enough young men singing and playing with this sound that a true genre was born.

The sound was wild and exciting. By 1956, young people across the country were buying huge quantities of records like Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-a-Lula”. More pop-oriented singers like Ricky Nelson got in on the rockabilly craze. But the best rockabilly music always had country music at its core.

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