A Sun Album Every Beatles Fan Should Own

takes you into Sun studios

Colin Escott writes in the liner notes to this remarkable reissue that Carl Perkins met The Beatles at the wrap party for his first British tour before the fFab Four broke big in America and he accompanied them to the studio the next day where they recorded "Matchbox". Months later they recorded "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby" and "Honey Don't". Over time the group or individuals in the group recorded every song on this album!

So yes, The Beatles were big Perkins fans and while this album was never recorded as an album but rather was a compilation of singles that by the time it was released November 1957 Perkins "had either left Sun or was halfway out the door", Escott writes, the Beatles did more than "parrot songs from Carl's Sun album; they internalized his work".

It's great fun listening to the originals of songs every Beatles fan knows but it's more fun catching glints of Perkins in other Beatles tunes as you listen to Perkins perform all of his tunes here—a lick reflected in some familiar George Harrison guitar solo or a vocal inflection from another Beatle.

Everything about this album is so doggone sweet, from the packaging to the remarkable sound, to Escott's notes (I helped Buettner connect with Escott through our mutual friend Ken Kessler and glad I did because the notes provide a powerful portal between Perkins and The Beatles and that should help convince more Beatles fans who are not necessarily rockabilly fans to pick this one up).

Escott delves deeply and back in time to the roots of many of the songs here and that adds additional luster to the package as does knowing that these tapes were not exactly in "ship shape" out of the vault. For more on that story, read this profile of Archival Engineer Kelly Pribble, of Iron Mountain Media and Archival services.

Congrats to all involved in this re-issue and if you have the 1986 Rhino compilation Carl Perkins Original Sun Greatest Hits (Rhino RNLP 70221) trust me, you ain't heard nuttin' until you hear this!