The voice of ‘Sh-Boom’ in the House of God

He made his first musical appearance in the 1930s as a 3-year-old on Canadian radio and later sang soprano and then tenor in the famed St. Michael’s Cathedral School Choir in Toronto.

Later, he belted out lead vocals on the worldwide No. 1 hit “Sh-Boom” that put the St. Michael’s-based, 1950s pop quartet, The Crew-Cuts, on the map. While touring with The Crew-Cuts in Liverpool, he walked an unknown teenager named Paul McCartney back to his home after a concert.

But when John Perkins, 89, looks back on his magical life, he uses soft, mellow, hushed tones.

For the last 53 years, the Canadian transplant, once advertised as “Wee” Jackie by director Russ Creighton of the Canadian Mountaineers’ musical troupe, has directed school and church choirs at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Slidell while living in the same house he and Gilda, his wife of 62 years, moved into in 1964, when The Crew-Cuts finally disbanded.

Perkins has been religious in pursuing his avocation, meticulously planning school Masses in the cafeteria for St. Margaret Mary’s founding pastor, Father Timothy Pugh, and then directing choirs at the weekend Masses for decades under Msgr. Richard Carroll, the longtime successor to Father Pugh.

“Father Carroll used to tell me I did more Masses than he did,” Perkins said, laughing. “Of course, I hope the music inspires people religiously and that they get more out of the service.”

What has amazed Gilda all these years about her husband is not just his talent but also his gentle nature, especially for someone whose R&B quartet, which included younger brother Ray, sold several million copies of “Sh-Boom” following its 1954 release.

Gilda Casella was a junior at Warren Easton High School in 1956 and was working a part-time job at WSMB radio when The Crew-Cuts came to the studio one Saturday to promote their latest recordings and local appearances.

Somehow or another, John, eight years older, asked if he could drive Gilda home. On the way, his car radio died.

Miracles start this way.

Gilda’s father, Peter Casella, ran a backyard business of fixing radios and electronics.

“He pulled the radio out of my car,” John said. “So, for the next week or 10 days, I would call Gilda to check in on my radio.”

“I was just in high school, and this was a gentleman,” Gilda recalled. “The boys my age – the ones I was going out with – they would never think of opening the car door or being nice to you. He didn’t try to kiss me. He didn’t try to do anything. It was wonderful. I couldn’t get over it.”

While on the road, John wrote and telephoned Gilda nearly every day, but their time together was limited. When John proposed marriage the following year upon her high school graduation, many of Gilda’s friends and relatives warned her “it would never last.”

“I used to work at the Hibernia Bank building downtown, and every day I would stop into Jesuit Church on Baronne,” Gilda said. “They have a beautiful mosaic of the Blessed Mother in the back. I prayed to that thing every single day, and I lit a candle. I said, ‘If this is the one for me, please let me know, let me know.’ It just grew from there.”

The one regret John has from his Crew-Cuts success is that the group’s musical brilliance couldn’t overcome the singers’ naivete in financial matters. Even though “Sh-Boom” has now sold between 3 and 4 million copies – with most of the recent sales in Europe – the big money never seemed to trickle down.

“They send me a statement about twice a year, but it’s gradually diminishing,” John said, chuckling.

The group’s managers hatched a can’t-miss marketing scheme to latch on to the song’s popularity by offering “Sh-Boom” shampoo for sale.

“They lost their tails in that one,” Gilda said, laughing.

“We’ve got bottles of ‘Sh-Boom’ shampoo somewhere  around here,” John said. “If anyone wants some, I’ll give them some. It’s over 60 years old, but it’s still soapy.”

Even when he was on the road as a young man, John never missed Mass on Sunday. Gilda said he has been an inspiration to her and their four children and grandchildren.

“He’s so faithful,” she said. “I don’t think he’s ever missed a Mass. He’s a quiet, very unassuming guy. He doesn’t go around telling people what he does or anything – but put him on a street corner with two people, and he lights up like a Christmas tree.”

With pandemic restrictions beginning to loosen, the choirs at St. Margaret Mary have resumed singing – though tentatively, with the members wearing masks. John compensated for the removal of hymnals from the pews by projecting the words of each hymn on screens near the altar.

He knows the sacred music means as much to parishioners today as it did to the young boy who used to sing in St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto every Sunday – with donuts in between the 8:30 a.m. and noon Masses as a reward.

“It’s been so much a part of my life that it’s really, really ingrained in me the idea of what religion is all about – the music anyway,” John said. “It’s made my faith a little deeper, I think.”

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