Laura Lee Perkins

Touted in the trade press as "the female Jerry Lee Lewis," rockabilly bombshell Laura Lee Perkins was born Alice Faye Perkins in Killarney, WV, in 1939. After spending her childhood singing in school and in church, at 17 she packed her belongings into a cardboard box and bought a one-way bus ticket to Cleveland, instead settling in nearby Elyria, OH, and taking a job as a waitress. There she befriended WERE radio personality Bill Randle, who in late 1957 ushered Perkins into the local Audio Recording Studio to cut a demo tape comprising three of her original songs. Randle sent...