New Wax Wednesday

Well, it’s one for the money (pause), two for the show (pause) . . . and I bet you know the rest. Seeing how we’re fast approaching the 70th anniversary of the song those opening lines adorn — Carl Perkins’ perennial rockabilly classic, “Blue Suede Shoes” — the timing couldn’t be any better for an audiophile-centric reissue to remind us of the inherent magic found within the grooves of this truly groundbreaking, December 1955-recorded, January 1956-released single on Sun Records.

To that end, Intervention Records have just announced that the first vinyl release in their new Intervention Sun Records Hi-Fi Series will be the album that “Blue Suede Shoes” ultimately landed on — 1957’s Dance Album of Carl Perkins — and it’s expected to ship in December 2025. The SRP for this all-important, all-analog 180g 45rpm mono LP release is $40, and you can pre-order it directly from Intervention right here.

You want all the aural bona-fides for this historic reissue? We got ’em! Intervention (a.k.a. IR) tells us directly that they worked closely with Sun Records and the Archive Team at Iron Mountain to compile a completely new set of A/B reel master tapes for Dance Album. Furthermore, IR also pointed out that, when Shelby Singleton purchased Sun Records from Sam Phillips in the late 1960s, the original 7-inch single master tape reels were compiled onto many different sets of ¼-inch tapes. While identifying any one tape as “the master” for a given song was deemed to no longer be possible, IR’s head honcho Shane Buettner confirmed that both he and reps from Sun spent countless hours listening to tapes and identifying, quote, “the absolute best-sounding” tape version of each and every song that appears on Dance Album.

As Buettner told me exclusively for AP just the other day, “Another thing people will feel is that Sam Phillips was a helluva recording engineer, and he is really the co-star here. I honestly think this LP is an amazing testament to what Sam and Carl put on these tapes in the 1950s.” (Three words: Bop Cat Bop!)

What you’ll hear on Dance Album is what a pioneer of an artform sounds like in the exact, direct moments history was being made in the studio. “The really beautiful thing is that, musically, Carl’s sound was hot and totally new in its time, and maybe even the first rockabilly people ever heard — it was so new that it didn’t have a name yet,” Buettner added. “It had jump and excitement that will be revealed for the first time in some very meaningful ways.”

Kelly Pribble, Mark Berger, and Scott Delaney at Iron Mountain made flat ¼-inch transfers at IR’s direction to a newly minted set of ¼-inch A/B reels for this release. According to the IR team’s collective research, Dance Album hadn’t been cut to vinyl from analog tape “at least since the early 1980s, but perhaps not since the 1960s.” No compiled A/B reels exist in the Sun archives, so IR’s belief is that the many reels they listened to were indeed the original master tapes, plural.

Cohearent Audio’s Kevin Gray was able to cut the entire Dance Album program onto a lone 180g LP at 45rpm, mainly due to it being a) all in mono, and b) packed with an even-dozen, quick-paced songs that top out at a runtime of 31 minutes. Dance Album was pressed on ultra-quiet 180g vinyl by boutique press Gotta Groove Records. RTI did the plating in a full 3-Step process to, quote, “ensure the highest possible sound quality.”

As is their practice, IR also paid close attention to how they reproduced the album art, and they wanted to extend a very special thanks to Joe Goldmark, who loaned them his very-hard-to-find original jacket for color reference. The album art was then duly restored by IR Art Director Tom Vadakan, and authentically realized by Stoughton Printing as an “old-style” tip-on jacket with authentic “brown-in” blanks.

In a first for IR, this release features liner notes written by Sun Records historian Colin Escott, who also consulted on the Dance Album reissue. Here’s but one gem from those liners: “The vocals are so expressive, as if Carl is aching to share something with you. He sings with unforced authority. His guitar plays nip-and-tuck around the vocals, so the momentum never falters. His solos are relatively simple, but exquisitely lyrical. He never over-plays or over-emotes. He always uses the fewest moving parts for the maximum effect. It just works on every level, from technical to emotional to musical.”

Some other stats ’n’ facts now. “Blue Suede Shoes” was released as a single on New Year’s Day 1956, and it ultimately reached No. 2 on both the Billboard and Cashbox singles charts, as well as No. 1 on Billboard’s Country chart. For a refresher, check out its official YouTube clip above — keeping in mind, of course, that it is not the upcoming IR version.

To say all 12 tracks on Dance Album helped give birth to rock ’n’ roll itself is hardly an understatement, and they’ve all been covered by the likes of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, The Beatles — not just in their prime Fab Four band configuration, but also as solo artists — and countless others over the ensuing decades. Just the song titles alone evoke a level of imagery and emotion only Perkins could provide from the jump — “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Honey Don’t,” “Matchbox,” and “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” among them. The album also includes Perkins’ made-’em-his-own covers of The Platters’ “Only You” and Piano Red’s “Wrong Yo Yo.”

When I asked Buettner to honestly assess the SQ of the new IR pressing of Dance Album, he replied, “On all of its tracks, these are not lean forward, squint, and tune in your super golden ears differences. From the needle drop, you hear Carl go, ‘One for the money / Two for the show,’ and it’s a wholly new experience of this iconic blast of rock history.”

Continued Buettner, “As cliche as it sounds, you really feel an electric sense of energy, jump and, drive that really puts you in Sun Studios in a way that I really don’t think has ever made it to vinyl before. The dynamics in particular — maybe most evident on “Gone, Gone, Gone” [Side 1, Track 4] — are really going to floor people. While Carl’s amazing guitar playing is all over the record, I have to say, at mastering, ‘Only You’ [Side 1, Track 6] surprised me in what a great vocalist he was. In musical terms, I couldn’t believe how beautiful that cover is.”

Buettner concludes (and I wholeheartedly concur), “Carl’s impact on rock from the ’50s to now is indisputable — and this record is the document.” Needless to say, given its inherent historic qualities and overall formative energy, the Music on Dance Album garners an indisputable rating of 10, as all 12 of its tracks are the literal building-block foundations of the rock idiom. My Sound rating for the IR LP itself, of course, will have to wait until I’m able to hear the final results firsthand — and I can’t wait to drop the needle on it. Well, all my friends are boppin’ the blues, it must be goin’ ’round / I love you baby, but I must be rhythm bound. . .

CARL PERKINS
DANCE ALBUM OF CARL PERKINS
180g 45rpm 1LP (Intervention)

Side 1
1. Blue Suede Shoes
2. Movie Magg
3. Sure To Fall
4. Gone, Gone, Gone
5. Honey Don’t
6. Only You

Side 2
1. Tennessee
2. Wrong Yo Yo
3. Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby
4. Matchbox
5. Your True Love
6. Boppin’ The Blues