Story, The [Bonus ECD]

EMI Plus' budget-priced The Story series presents straightforward, no-frills compilations of major rock artists with catalogs in the EMI vaults, accompanied by CD-ROMs containing brief biographical information (in English, Dutch, French, and Spanish), discographies consisting of album titles and dates of release, and a photo gallery. The Carl Perkins volume is a selection of 20 of his recordings for Sun Records in the mid- to late '50s. All the titles that might be expected are present: "Blue Suede Shoes," of course, as well as the country- and pop-chart entries "Boppin' the Blues," "Dixie Fried," "I'm Sorry I'm Not Sorry," and "Your True Love," and the three Perkins songs later covered by the Beatles, "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," "Honey Don't," and "Matchbox." (They also performed "Lend Me Your Comb," and that's here, too.) Perkins' interest in straight country is explored on several tracks, and he also rocks out on a cover of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven." The spare annotations make this a bare-bones compilation, but it covers the basics. ~ William Ruhlmann