Carl Perkins, Jackson, TN, 1995

Carl Perkins in his backyard in Jackson, MS, 1995. When I first moved to Nashville in the early '90s I met a guy at a party who was writing a book about Carl Perkins. I said I had to do the book jacket photo — end of story. I'd been a Carl fan since I was a kid. The guy called me a few years later and said, I finished the book and I need that photo. I went to Jackson, TN and shot Carl and we became fast friends. I was driving to Memphis a lot in those days for work and I always seemed to be stopping for gas in Jackson. I'd call Carl from the gas station and he'd say, Hey Cat Daddy, you can't drive through town without coming to see Carl! So it was like that for years, always leaving his house with a bag of his wife Valda's fresh hot cookies on my car seat. This photo is from that first visit, shot on my big 8 x 10 camera.

Archival pigment print on baryta 315 gsm, acid-free, 100% cotton-fiber paper.