JOHNNY ANGELO'S BLUE SUEDE SHOES | FEAT. NIK COHN


1956 | Carl Perkins
Dance Album Of Carl Perkins (SUN)

With all his peacockery, his implied narcissism, he (ELVIS) was also a major pose-maker for boys. A lot of the time he sang conventional romantic lyrics but some of his biggest hits were breakaways - the harshness and contempt for women in Hound Dog was typical.

Blue Suede Shoes was even more to the point. This had been a hit for Carl Perkins in 1956 but Elvis took it over the following year and gave it wholly new dimensions. It was important - the idea that clothes could dominate your life. 
Girls and cars and money didn't count. All that mattered were shoes, beautiful brand-new blue suede shoes. It was the first hint at an obsession with objects- motorbikes, clothes and so on- that was going to become central.
Nik Cohn
From: AWopBopaLooBopaLopBamBoom: Pop From the Beginning (Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., 1969)

1957 | Elvis Presley
Blue Suede Shoes 7" (RCA, rereleased 1984)

Fun clothes, for the most part, meant Ted-inspired. 'For the first time, poor people's clothes were imitated by the rich. We all had long hair, or longer than anyone else's at the time, and very tight trousers that showed our cocks. That was the focal point, the crotch; and then, if we wanted to pile outrage upon outrage, we wore blue suede shoes as well.
Nik Cohn
From: Chelsea (Ball The Wall - Picador, 1989)


1973 | Johnny Rivers
Blue Suede Shoes (United Artists)

He bought a pair of blue suede shoes and they filled his life. Sitting at the back of the classroom, he put his feet up on the radiator and he couldn't stop staring, his eyes were dazzled by blue and these shoes had pointed toes, sharp steel tips, pure white stitching. In every detail, they were perfection and the way that Johnny felt for them, it was like nothing since his fat black cat.

Each night, he spent 30 minutes cleaning them with a soft felt brush, one hundred strokes with his left hand, one hundred strokes with his right. Then he wrapped them in chamois leather and took many pictures of their reflections. And the time came soon when he didn't even wear them but carried them around in his luncheon box, tied up in red braces.
Nik Cohn
From: I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo (Secker & Warburg, 1967)


2015 | Long John And His Ballroom Kings
Blue Suede Shoes 7" (Rydell Records)
Cover design: Don De Vil Artworks (Austria)

When nobody was looking, he took them out and held their softness against his cheek. He was happy then. But one morning he came into class and dirty words were scrawled on the blackboard: Good-bye Blue Suede Shoes.
Nik Cohn
From: I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo (Secker & Warburg, 1967)

SHOES & BOOKS
[FEAT. HEMINGWAY, SHAKESPEARE, SARAMAGO, RANKIN, GALEANO ...]


1977 | Various Artists
Don't You Step On My Suede Shoes (Charly)



 

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