Carl Perkins — Tiptonville, Tennessee Origins

Carl Perkins was born on April 9, 1932, near Tiptonville in Lake County, Tennessee, into a sharecropping family, and grew up absorbing the music of Black cotton workers alongside the white country and gospel he heard in church. This double musical inheritance produced the rockabilly style he developed at Sun Records: a fusion of Black rhythm and blues with white country that was simultaneously racially transgressive and commercially explosive. 'Blue Suede Shoes,' written in a single night in late 1955 after a remark overheard at a dance, became one of the first true rock and roll anthems — reaching the top of the pop, country, and R&B charts simultaneously before Elvis's cover version overshadowed it.

Perkins was badly injured in a car accident in March 1956, just as 'Blue Suede Shoes' was at its peak, which allowed Elvis's version to dominate and permanently altered the trajectory of his career. The Beatles were devoted Perkins fans — they covered 'Matchbox,' 'Honey Don't,' 'Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby,' and 'Sure to Fall' — and his influence on the British Invasion is incalculable. He spent years as a sideman in Johnny Cash's touring band before a late-career revival.

Tiptonville is the seat of Lake County in northwestern Tennessee, in the Mississippi River bottomlands. The Carl Perkins Civic Center in Jackson, Tennessee — where he is more associated — is the main institutional acknowledgement of his legacy. He died of a series of strokes in January 1998 and is buried in Jackson.