He died of complications from a series of three strokes suffered in the past two months at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital per a family spokesman.

The son of a tenant farmer in Tennessee, the singer-guitarist was among several rockabilly performers to emerge from Memphis' famed Sun Studios whose fast-paced tunes and twangy lyrics would influence dozens of rockers to come, including the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton.

At the same time that Perkins was helping launch rock music from his country roots, Chuck Berry's machine-gun guitar licks were reinventing the Blues as rock and roll.

The two are acknowledged as perhaps the key figures in the birth of rock music in the late 1950s.

John Lennon once said "there was no music before Sun (Studios)," and the Beatles would record three Perkins songs after meeting him at a 1964 recording session -- "Honey Don't," "Matchbox," and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby."

Before Presley turned "Blue Suede Shoes" into the first song to simultaneously top the pop, country and rhythm and blues charts, Perkins received his first dose of stardom when he recorded it in 1956 and sold two million copies.

On stage, the curly-haired Perkins' shuffle was mild compared to the wild-limbed performances by Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, but like those artists, Perkins had a long bout with alcohol that sometimes led him to improvise song lyrics.

Besides writing songs that other performers turned into hits, Perkins was much-imitated by the young Dylan, Clapton, John Fogerty and George Harrison, all of whom acknowledged copying his style before developing their own.

Perkins also wrote "Daddy Sang Bass" for another Sun Studios veteran, Johnny Cash, and the pair would spend a decade touring together and once performed at the White House.

Perkins was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in 1986 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year later.

In 1991, he had to stop touring to undergo treatment for lung cancer and later successfully battled throat cancer. He endured surgery on a blocked artery in his neck in June last year and subsequently suffered a series of strokes.

Back on stage after his initial bout with cancer, he said "I know how precious and fragile life is now."

A prolific composer throughout his career, Perkins wrote "So Wrong" for Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton's "Silver and Gold", the Judds' "Let Me Tell You About Love" and George Strait's "A Man on His Own."

Carl Wilson, lead guitarist of the surf band The Beach Boys, his family by his side, died Friday evening, 6 February 1998 from lung cancer at the age of 51, just two months after the death of his mother, Audre. Carl is survived by his wife Gina, sons Johan and Justyn, and his brother Brian.

Wilson had been undergoing treatment for both lung and brain cancer since being diagnosed in the spring of 1997, however Wilson continued to perform with the band on their 1997 summer tour. The band's publicist Alyson Dutch said, "He was a real fighter,".

The Beach Boys were formed in 1961 by brothers Carl, Dennis and Brian Wilson, their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine. Dennis originated the idea of capitalizing on the surfing craze that began in the 50s, and the Beach Boys' surf sound was born. Throughout the turbulence of the mid- late-60s, the Beach Boys sang about summer days at the beach, surfing, girls and hot rods. Starting with 1962's Surfin' Safari, their unique style of vocal harmonization profoundly altered the direction of rock and roll. The Beach Boys epitomized the all-American image with their well-groomed, suntanned surfer look, creating the "California Myth" that ultimately lured droves of teenagers to the west coast looking for endless summer days and "two girls for every boy." Their large catalog of classics include I Get Around, Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda, Surfin' USA, Little Deuce Coupe, God Only Knows and Kokomo.

The Beach Boys were often criticized for their simple, naive sound that appeared to be oblivious to the political and social storm brewing among the youth of America. But their later albums delved into multi-layered, experimental territory that had an impact on artists as diverse as the Beatles, who credit Pet Sounds as being the major influence for their Sgt. Pepper album, to Pink Floyd and Queen. The Beach Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Despite the Beach Boys' creative genius and cheerful, upbeat sound, personal and family problems plagued the band. Brother Brian Wilson, the primary songwriter and creative force in the band, suffered a nervous breakdown and as a result limited his presence to studio work only. Brother Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983. And Carl, growing tired of the group's lack of musical growth, left in 1981 to pursue a solo career. He later rejoined the band and continued until the time of his death.

Beach Boys Links:
Beach Boys Fan Club Home Page
Discography - Compiled and maintained by John McIver.
Message Boards - From Mike Wheeler's Web Page for Brian Wilson.
Beach Boys Newsgroup
Beach Boys Music reviews

Grand Ole Opry Star Grandpa Jones Dies At 84

Jones is survived by his wife,Ramona, two daughters, Eloise and Alisa and a son, Mark. His funeral is February 23 at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

Jones, who played the guitar and banjo on the leading U.S. country music showcase for 46 years, picked up the nickname at the age of 22 at a radio station in Boston because of his bushy eyebrows and a voice that made him sound older, supposedly by hillbilly crooner Bradley Kincaid.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Jones was born in Niagra, Ky., the youngest of 10 children in the family of a sharecropper.

His family was constantly on the move and he got his first break in Akron, Ohio, when his guitar earned him a talent competition victory over 450 other amateurs.

He played guitar regularly on Station WJW in Akron, then teamed up with harmonica player Joe Troyan. The two played in the house band for the popular "Lum and Abner" radio show, and then joined another troupe as "Zeke and Harve".

After the act broke up, Jones served as a Military Police officer during World War II. He organized a band called the "Munich Mountaineers" playing daily on the Armed Forces Radio Network.

When the war ended, Jones moved to Nashville in 1946 where he worked with Pee Wee King on a tent show and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry. He was made an Opry member the following year. During this period, Jones turned to banjo playing, using the "drop-thumb technique" which he interspersed with humorous remarks to his audience.

In 1969 he joined the immensely popular TV series "Hee Haw". He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978.

Henny Youngman, the Borscht Belt comic dubbed "The King of One-liners" for cracks like the immortal "Take my wife -- please!" died yesterday. He was 91. Henny is survived by a son, Gary, of Los Angeles, and a daughter, Marilyn Kelly, of New York.

Jackie Green, a friend and Friars Club Dean Emeritus reported that Henny died of complications from the flu at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Youngman became the quintessential Catskills comedian, developing a schtick unvaried through seven decades in show business: snappy one-liners and rapid-fire jokes as likely to bring a groan as a guffaw from his audience. But his act played. Youngman appeared in countless clubs from the Catskills to the Palladium in London, from Atlantic City to Las Vegas and most points in between while working more than 200 shows per year into his 70s.

His quick, near-mechanical delivery became Youngman's trademark; in 60 seconds, he could unleash a half-dozen zingers. A typical Youngman joke: "A man says to another man, 'Can you tell me how to get to Central Park?' 'No.' 'All right, I'll mug you right here.' " This caused columnist Walter Winchell, impressed with Youngman, to dub Henny "the king of the one-liners" in the 1930s. Youngman's most famous one-liner -- "Take my wife -- please" -- was actually delivered by accident before an appearance on radio's "Kate Smith Show."

A frazzled Youngman was getting ready minutes before air time when his wife, Sadie, showed up with several friends to see the show. Youngman grabbed an usher and told him, "Take my wife, please." The comic was still using the line after his wife died in 1987 at age 82.

Oddly, the comedian who became an American institution was born in England on March 16, 1906. "I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother," Youngman once said.

He arrived in New York six months later. The family settled in Brooklyn, and he grew up there, learning to play the violin at his father's urging, attending the Brooklyn Vocational Trade School, and becoming a printer.

But he was bitten by the showbiz bug while working in his Manhattan print shop. Milton Berle, who was performing in a club nearby, would stop by the shop between shows to hang out with Henny, Youngman recalled in a 1991 interview with the Associated Press.

"I was a groupie for Berle," said Youngman. "I picked up a lot of stuff from him. Learned a lot."

His first shot at stardom came as a bandleader, the head of a group called Henny Youngman and the Swanee Syncopaters during the 1920s. Youngman's comedy career was the result of a tightwad club owner at the Swan Lake Inn in the Catskills.

Youngman was telling jokes between songs at the club. The owner fired the band and hired Henny as a comic, and the rest was hysteria.

"My whole life's an accident," he said in the interview. "I've never planned anything. It's just all happened."

What happened next was several years of doing the comedy circuit before Youngman's big break: a two-year stint with Smith's popular CBS network radio show.

He left the "Kate Smith Show" in 1938 with an eye on the movies, but the offers never came in and Youngman couldn't sit still. He went back out as a comedian, averaging more than 200 dates per year over the next 40 years.

His father had hoped that Youngman might some day play violin with the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. That never happened but he used the fiddle as a prop in his act, playing a few bars to break up the gags.

Youngman played legendary halls long since reduced to memories: the Fox and the Paramount in Brooklyn, the Latin Quarter and the Yacht Club in Manhattan, the Persian Room in the Plaza Hotel.

His career -- always steady, with a constant flow of dates -- received a boost in the 1960s from "Laugh-In," the weekly television program of one-liners which introduced the catch-phrase, "Oh, that Henny Youngman!"

And the Youngman style was perfect in 1974 when New York Telephone instituted its new Dial-A-Joke service, where callers heard six of Henny's gags in a one-minute call.

Youngman drew 3 million calls in a month with material like, "Fellow walks into a doctor. Doctor says, 'You're gonna live to be 80.' Fellow says, 'I am 80.' Doctor says, 'What did I tell you?' "

The peripatetic comedian continued working through his 85th birthday, appearing briefly in the Martin Scorsese gangster epic "GoodFellas" and working with Steven Spielberg on his "Tiny Toons" cartoons series.

At age 90, he attended a ceremony where a Manhattan street corner was named for him. On his 91st birthday, he summoned reporters to a Manhattan restaurant for a reading of his "Last Will and Testament."

"To my nephew Irving, who still keeps asking me to mention him in my will: 'Hello, Irving!' " it read.