On December 4, 1956, Carl Perkins walked into the Memphis Recording Service to make a record. He had scored a national smash hit earlier in the year with “Blue Suede Shoes” and followed it up with “Boppin’ the Blues” and “Dixie Fried.” Both of the latter songs were hits, but nothing compared to the success of “Blue Suede Shoes.”
Sam Phillips was looking for another monster hit for his label, Sun Records. Carl’s band consisted of his brothers Jay and Clayton on guitar and bass, and W.S. Holland on drums. Phillips had a secret weapon for this session, a young piano pounder from Ferriday, Louisiana, who had just released his own record three days earlier. The world was only just discovering the power of Jerry Lee Lewis. Phillips supplemented the band with Lewis, who was all too anxious to show the established rock ’n’ rollers what he could do. Perkins would record “Your True Love” and its B-side on this session. If that was all that happened it would still be an important day in history, but add in that a yet-unknown Jerry Lee Lewis is playing piano and it makes for an even more monumental event.
All of these years later, when people talk about December 4, 1956, they rarely bring up what Carl Perkins and his band recorded. Another event occurred just after Perkins finished the two songs that would forever eclipse the importance of that record. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Matchbox” by Carl Perkins.
I said I’m sitting here watching
Matchbox hole in my clothes
I said I’m sitting here wondering
Matchbox hole in my clothes
I ain’t got no matches, but I sure got a long way to go
Perkins’ Father Buck Inspired the Song
Although songs had been recorded for decades using the same idea, Perkins claimed to have never heard any of them. Going back to the 1920s, Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, the Shelton Brothers, and Roy Newman and His Boys had all recorded various versions of the tale of a matchbox holding their clothes. It was Perkins’s father, Buck, who encouraged the 1956 version when he joined his sons in the studio. Carl Perkins told journalist Bill Dahl, “I had never heard a record of it. The day I recorded it, my dad, for the first time, went down with us to Sun Records. He said, ‘Carl, you ought to try out an old song, “Matchbox Blues.”‘ And my dad didn’t never play professional or anything, but he sang a little bit of it. And I never will forget Sam Phillips said, ‘Yeah, man, that’d be good!’ … I just made up some of the verses. My dad remembered a verse or two of it. But I never heard the song til that day.”
I’m an old poor boy
I’m a long way from home
I’m an old poor boy
And I’m a long way from home
I’ve never been happy
‘Cause everything I ever did was wrong
“Smart Aleck”
When they recorded “Your True Love,” Sam Phillips was convinced it was a hit. When he pronounced his feelings from the control room, Jerry Lee Lewis spoke right up and expressed his feelings to the contrary. Perkins was stunned, “I thought to myself, OK, you’ll be alright. I didn’t know whether he was good or not, and I didn’t talk to him a lot during the session because I detected that I would have trouble with him being a smart aleck. To me, that’s what a smart aleck was—somebody who would jump in and give his opinion of a record when it was my record. But he opened all them smart-aleck doors to start. I didn’t pick at him. I didn’t act like the guy that had ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and coulda said, ‘Hey, you’re in here to play piano and shut your damn mouth!’ I didn’t do that. I tried to make him feel welcome and comfortable, but I saw that that’s what he was. I’d done been around too many like him.”
Well, if you don’t want my peaches, honey
Please don’t shake my tree
If you don’t want any of those peaches, honey
Please don’t mess around my tree
I’ve got news for you, baby
Leave me here in misery, all right
“The Greatest Piano Break Jerry Lee Would Have Ever Taken”
Perkins was offended by Jerry Lee’s unprofessional outburst, so he didn’t offer a piano solo during the second song. Said Perkins, “I thought, ‘No, you smart aleck, I’m gonna play both breaks on this guitar.’ Next time, I’m gonna try to burn the neck off of it. I knew he was itchin’ for me to holler, ‘Get it, Jerry!’ I kinda wished I had of. I’d like to have seen what he would’ve done ’cause he was hot that day. He was going after it. I let myself get in the way of probably a phenomenal piano break. He would’ve shown me how to play a piano. So the world probably missed the greatest piano break Jerry Lee would have ever taken.”
Well, let me be your little dog
Till your big dog comes
Let me be your little dog
Till your big dog comes
And when your big dog gets here
Watch how your puppy dog runs
The Beatles
Some of Perkins’ biggest fans were on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, studying each release and learning the guitar parts. “Honey Don’t,” “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby,” “Lend Me Your Comb,” and “Matchbox” were all part of The Beatles’ repertoire. In his 1996 autobiography Go Cat Go!: The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, he wrote, “I met The Beatles in 1964 when I was on tour in England. They gave a party for me. At that time, they’d never been to America. They asked me what I thought would happen—would they go over well? I said, ‘Sure, I think so!’ I really was surprised that they did take the country by storm the way they did, but yet I felt that they had the talent and ability. They proved they had much more than I even thought with the songwriting ability that [Paul] McCartney and [John] Lennon had. I’ve always thought that they were great. Anybody that keeps rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly music alive is good for it, and if anybody ever did, they did. They came along at a time when our kind of music needed a shot in the arm that The Beatles gave it. The Beatles did a lot for all of us, especially me. It helped a lot when they cut my songs. A lot of disc jockeys said, written by …, so I’ve always been grateful to all of ’em. They’re really great guys.”
Well, I said I’m sitting here watching
Matchbox hole in my clothes
I said I’m sitting here watching
Matchbox hole in my clothes
I ain’t got no matches, but I sure got a long way to go
“Million Dollar Quartet”
By December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley had moved to RCA Records and was doing his recording in Nashville. He had grown from a regional sensation to a national smash. Presley stopped by the small studio at 706 Union Avenue to say hello to Sam Phillips and the session basically came to an end. Presley sat at the piano and, along with Perkins and Lewis, began to sing. As they jammed on different songs, engineer Jack Clement pressed record and captured an audio snapshot of this historic meeting of rock ‘n’ roll giants. When Johnny Cash happened to pop in for a few minutes, Phillips called the Memphis Press-Scimitar, and the entertainment editor Bob Johnson came to the studio with photographer George Pierce, who took the now iconic photo of the “Million Dollar Quartet.”
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