CARL PERKINS: STILL RED, HOT AND BLUE

“For that hour I’m a kid again--16 years old and walkin’ up to that Sun (Records) studio door,” says rockabilly legend Carl Perkins, explaining why he still plays the same red, hot and blues guitar licks that helped start a revolution with his original recording of “Blue Suede Shoes” 30 years ago.

Perkins credits his recent cable TV special with revitalizing his interest in performing. He’ll bring his Imarocker band, which consists of his sons Stan and Greg and veteran saxman Ace Cannon, to North Hollywood’s Palomino on Saturday, Solana Beach’s Belly Up Tavern on Sunday and Santa Ana’s Crazy Horse Steak House on Monday,

“I was all set to go off the road and spend the rest of my time huntin’ and fishin’,” Perkins, 54, reminisces during a phone conversation from his home in Jackson, Tenn. “I’ve got a house on the lake here that I’ve managed to buy with my songwriting royalties over the years.” (Besides “Blue Suede Shoes,” Perkins’ credits include three tunes re-recorded by the Beatles and the Johnny Cash smash “Daddy Sang Bass”.)

“But I wanted to do just one television special ‘cause I’d never had one of my own and I thought it would be sorta like a farewell gesture. So I got out my video machine and made little videos of myself and sent ‘em to all the biggest dudes I’d met in all my years in the music business. I told ‘em what I was plannin’ and said if you’d like to be a part of it, please sign the postcard enclosed.

“I’ll never forget walkin’ into my lawyer’s office, pullin’ those postcards from out of my coat and seein’ the look on his face,” Perkins recalls. “George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Dave Edmunds, Ringo Starr, the Stray Cats. All of ‘em. Signed up and ready to go.

“And I’ll tell you, when we went over to England to do that show, it was one of--if not the-- highlight of this ol’ rockabilly’s musical career. To be up there playin’ with those guys, really workin’, seein’ the sweat drip down their noses, made me feel highly honored.

“I remember goin’ over to George Harrison’s house--well, it’s not a house, it’s a castle--for dinner,” Perkins continues. “And George sittin’ down askin’ me how I kicked off one of my old records. Hell, I didn’t even remember recordin’ it!

“I told him, ‘Hoss, we’d just go into the Sun studio and make that stuff up on the spot. Ol’ Sam Phillips just kept the tape runnin’ and didn’t even put those tunes out until after I left the label. So George went over and got out his old record and played it for me, and then I kinda halfway remembered the day we cut ‘Perkins Wiggle.’ ”

Perkins’ modesty is even more surprising when you consider that he’s long been associated with some of rock’s biggest names, beginning with the famous “Million Dollar Quartet” session at Sun Records in the mid-’50s (“You know it took the local paper two hours to send a photographer down to take that picture of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and myself”) and continuing through his most recent album, “The Class of ‘55,” which teams Perkins with Cash, Lewis and Roy Orbison in an ad-hoc homage to not only the city of Memphis, but also the departed spirit of Elvis Presley.

Among the current crop of dyed-in-the-black leather jacket rockers, Perkins rates John Fogerty highest. “It’s a good thing he didn’t walk into Sam Phillips’ studio back in 1955. The way that boy writes, he might’ve given Elvis himself a run for the money.”

What about that long-repeated tale of Perkins having to close Elvis’ early shows because Presley didn’t want to follow Perkins’ wild stage act?

“That’s been exaggerated,” Perkins says, chuckling. “Maybe two or three times it happened, but that’s it. Even back then, Elvis was the most complete entertainer that I’ve ever seen. And probably the most nervous too. He was like a caged tiger backstage, ready to go out there and work his butt off. I’ve always said, ‘If you ain’t nervous before you go on, you’re high.’

“And since these shows are gonna be my first Los Angeles performances in six or seven years, I’ll be nervous. But when we’re about to start that first song and one of my sons winks at me and says, ‘Go, Daddy . . . ,’ anybody that buys a ticket ain’t gonna be able to say that I didn’t give it all I have.”