The article is about Carl Perkins the musician. For the politician see Carl D. Perkins.

Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 - January 19, 1998) was an American pioneer of rockabilly music, a mix of rhythm and blues and country music that evolved at Sun Records in Memphis in the early 1950s.

Born in Tiptonville, Tennessee, the son of a poor tenant farmer, Perkins grew up surrounded by southern gospel music sung by blacks working in the cotton fields. By age seven, he was playing a guitar his father made from a cigar box, broomstick and baling wire. At age thirteen he won a talent contest with a song he wrote called "Movie Magg". Ten years later, it would be this song that convinced Sam Phillips to sign him to the Sun Records label.

In 1956, a desperately poor and struggling Perkins wrote the song "Blue Suede Shoes" on an old potato sack. Produced by Sam Phillips, the record was a chart success. In the United States, it went to #1 on Billboard magazine'scountry music charts, to #4 on the pop music charts, and to #3 on the Rhythm & Blues charts. In the United Kingdom it became a Top 10 hit. It was the first record by a Sun label artist to sell a million copies. However, at the peak of the song's national success, Perkins was involved in a near-fatal car accident. His friend, Elvis Presley, would also cover "Blue Suede Shoes", that same year and his version also was a huge hit. The song is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and a Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipient.

After his chart topper, Perkins follow-up records were less successfull. However he would go on to work with artists such as Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Ringo Starr, old friend Jerry Lee Lewis and others. In 1968, country music legend, Johnny Cash, took the Perkins written "Daddy Sang Bass" to Number One.

During a long career, Perkins recorded numerous singles and albums plus wrote some of the top hit records in both rock 'n' roll and country music. His songs were covered by the Beatles, he collaborated on vocals with Paul McCartney, and played rhythm guitar on the McCartney-Stevie Wonder hit, "Ebony and Ivory".

During the "rock" revival of the 1980s, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr appeared with him in a television special in London, England called Carl Perkins and Friends: A Rockabilly Session.

At the Sun Studios in Memphis in 1986, he joined Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison on the album Class of '55. It was a tribute to their early years at Sun and in part a reprise of an informal jam session he, Presley, Cash, and Lewis had done on December 4, 1956.

In 1985, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 1987, recognition of Perkins' contribution to music came when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Carl Perkins died at the age of 65 from throat cancer after suffering several strokes. He is interred in the Ridgecrest Cemetery in Jackson, Tennessee.