Boss Blues Bopper: Carl Perkins

Kilburn High Street. November 2nd 1964. 10.15 p.m. Half a dozen youths are jigging about and clapping their hands. Not just to keep them warm but in time with an older man who stands in the centre of the group. He wears a suede jerkin and a pork-pie hat and sings a raunchy little number with a Confederate marching beat. Here and there a phrase leaps out and hits you in the face: "He jerked out his razor but he wasn’t shavin’."