I have always considered it a great compliment to have a great songwriter like Carl Perkins record my songs. Carl recorded two of my songs ( which I had co-written) one with my wife Pamela and one with Paul Overstreet, on his "Born To Rock" album. On the day that Carl recorded the song I had written with Paul I had just gotten to the recording studio when Carl drove up in his powder blue Lincoln Town car with the word "Suede" on the license plate. He reached into the backseat and pulled out a Fender guitar (without a case) made personally for him by Leo Fender himself. The song he was recording that day was called "Baby Please Answer Your Phone". It is a song about a guy desperately trying to find his girlfriend. One line says, "You're There I Know You Are, Cause I Drove Bye and Saw Your Car." Carl was singing that line of the song as he walked up to me, when he stopped, he looked at me and said "Man, there ain't a cat alive that ain't done that". That was typical Carl.

I did go to Carl's funeral to say my goodbyes to my old friend along with people like Wynona Judd, Johnny Rivers, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Ricky Skaggs. George Harrison was there and got up with just an acoustic guitar and sang what he said was the first Carl Perkins song he ever learned. George said that Carl was the "Beatles" biggest musical influence. As a guitar player George always wanted to play like Carl. Throughout all of their years as friends, every time George would buy a new guitar or have one handmade, he would also send an identical one to Carl. In Carl's recording studio on his farm, he still had the original Carl Perkins Fan Club membership cards of all four of the Beatles hanging on the wall.  Read on...