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"Honey Don't," "Matchbox," and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby." These recordings, and their subsequent renown, went nearly as far as the artist's own work had in the 1950s to insure that there would always be a spot for Perkins in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, into which he was officially inducted in 1987.
Perkins's alcohol problem became most acute during the 1960s. Then, one night in 1971 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, he walked onstage drunk and struggled through only three songs before giving up. He left the stage, threw his guitar against the wall, and sat for a while in the tour bus, sobbing. That night marked the end of his drinking days. By 1977 Perkins was touring again on his own, this time with his sons Stan and Greg serving as back-up.
The Million Dollar Quartet lived on in legend long enough to prompt an unlikely reunion--unlikely in that Presley died eight years and one month before the event. But on September 16, 1985, an illustrious rockabilly lineup returned to the cramped studios at 706 Union Avenue in Memphis to record some new originals. Hair-raising tenor Roy Orbison joined Perkins, Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis in place of "the King." Other notables in attendance included Sun Records artist Charlie Rich; Scotty Moore, Presley's lead guitarist; Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty, whose tribute to the Sun legends, "Big Train From Memphis," was recorded during the session; and the mother-daughter country vocal duo the Judds, who sang back-up. Perkins hadn't been in the tiny studio since 1958 and was clearly touched by the gathering. "That little studio changed my life," he told Rolling Stone. "[It] gave my kids new bicycles and gave me some new sharkskin britches that I could never have gotten out of the cotton patch. I tried sending tapes everywhere. But it was Sun Records that gave me a chance."
In 1992 Perkins released Friends, Family and Legends. Though not pleased with what he felt was overly glossy production, Pulse!' s Ted Drozdowski nevertheless reported in his review of the album, "Carl Perkins still sings like a god--all goosed up on the religion of rock'n'roll, the gospel for which he helped write." Shortly after the record's debut, the singer was diagnosed with throat cancer. But at 60, Perkins was every bit the survivor he was in his twenties. In an interview with Musician' s Scott Isler in August of 1992, Perkins reported that the more than 30 radiation treatments he had undergone appeared to have been successful and that he was "feeling stronger everyday." When he got up in a club after regaining his voice that year, intending "to do a couple of songs," five "slipped by ... real fast." The man, and the performer, it seemed, were incapable of quitting. By the fall of 1992 Perkins was on the road again, playing to enthusiastic houses in Europe, "fronting a series of star-studded anniversary parties for the Hard Rock Cafe, including one where longtime fan George Harrison dropped in," reported the Metro Times. Pulse! also tracked Perkins touring in Britain, where he had always been revered, with Presley band alumni Moore and drummer D. J. Fontana. Fans could almost have expected such a recovery from the guitar- and cotton-picker who, despite all the hardship and tragedy in his life, was able to tell one interviewer, "I have been and am to this day a very happy man."
