JACKSON, Tenn. -- The flags all over town were at half-staff. A huge new billboard had cropped up overnight, inscribed with the sentiment, "Thanks for The Memories, Carl Perkins 1932-1998." Businesses all along Highway 45 had changed the greeting on its signs to read, "Our prayers are with the Perkins Family." When the hearse left the Smith & Sons Funeral Home, hundreds of townsfolk lined its path, standing in silent tribute to a fallen hero. All of Jackson, Tenn., it seemed, had come out to mourn Carl Perkins, the undisputed King of Rockabilly, who died Jan. 19 of a heart attack following a series of strokes in early December.

Lambuth University's R.E. Womack Memorial Chapel couldn't hold the approximately 500 mourners who came to the service on Jan. 23. A room at the student union, across the lawn from the chapel, had been outfitted with another 250-plus chairs and a big-screen TV, so latecomers could watch the service, which was being broadcast by a local channel. Typical of Perkins' appeal, the crowd encompassed several generations, from seniors who could have been Perkins' parents to toddlers who could have been his grandchildren. They came in suits and ties, fine dresses, jeans and leather jackets, white bucks, blue suedes, pointed toe shoes and high-heeled sneakers. Bald heads, longhairs and Hillbilly Cats with ducktails and dangerous sideburns.

The stars who weren't part of the service slipped in quietly with the rest of the crowd, almost unnoticed upon arrival. Garth Brooks sat up front. Close by him was a long-haired man in what looked like a blue work shirt and jeans, seemingly in deep meditation: George Harrison. Toward the rear of the chapel sat a nattily attired Jerry Lee Lewis, although no one seemed to notice.

Shortly before the 2 p.m. service got under way, a tardy Sam Phillips -- founder of Sun Records and the man who recorded Perkins, Elvis Presley, Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash in the '50s -- arrived, all hangdog countenance after a week spent mourning his "good friend," blithely ignoring what Perkins never forgot: Phillips didn't pay Perkins his proper royalties until a court ordered him to do so.

Near the back of the chapel sat an elderly gent of regal bearing. That would be Malcolm Yelvington, a Sun artist in the early '50s, whose debut single was the first one issued by the label after Presley's launch in 1954. Commercial success eluded Yelvington, but over the years he has developed a rabid following in Europe. He's 78 now, and has cut a new album, again at Sun.

The service itself is reverent, of course, but sometimes strained. Billy Ray Cyrus, whom Perkins befriended in recent years, is supposed to sing "Amazing Grace," but instead offers a new song he claims that he heard the departed Perkins tell him to write. It's banal and trite, and you can imagine Perkins wincing from the great beyond, but probably appreciating the only elegant lyric: "Heaven's awaiting/ So go with your grace."

Ricky Skaggs, a genuinely kind and good-hearted fellow, seems to forget that he's there to pay tribute to Perkins, not to deliver a sermon. He comes dangerously close to babbling, losing it, and at one point refers to Perkins' hometown as "Jackson, Mississippi." Then, before he sings, he offers the unbelievable bit of news that he didn't know the song he was about to perform had been written by Perkins until he was asked to sing it at this service. The number is "Silver and Gold," one of Perkins' most personal lyrics ever, and a major hit for Dolly Parton in 1991. Skaggs starts going on, and on, and on, about how great Parton's own songs are that he just assumed this was one and, oh, even the ones she throws away would be hits for other people. Skaggs phone home: This is a service for Perkins. But when he sings "Silver and Gold," it's exquisite: Tender, heartfelt, beautifully realized in every aspect, particularly in the soft caressing of the verse Perkins was proudest of, because it went to the core of who he was: "Silver and gold might buy you a home/ Things of this world won't last you long/ Time can't be bought back/ With silver and gold."

Following sincere but unremarkable tributes by Johnny Rivers and Tennessee Governor Don Sunquist, Wynonna Judd reminded everyone what the day was all about with a majestic, towering interpretation of "How Great Thou Art." Backed by a gospel trio, her voice husky from crying over the man she adored as "Uncle Carl" and "the coolest cat I ever met," Judd dug down deep and ripped the song out of her soul, her voice soaring up and out of the chapel, on wings to Heaven. It was an astonishing, mesmerizing moment, and when she had finished, no dry eyes were visible. For the first time, it seemed, everyone understood the enormity of who had been lost -- a hero to all of Jackson, who had brought the town international attention by his very presence but had made it his life's work to develop the Exchange Club Carl Perkins Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse into an organization that would save lives and change lives, long after his demise; a giant who had stepped into American history and helped change it with his music; a friend and confidante of hundreds of artists over the years, who sought his advice, counsel and pep talks right up to the day he suffered his first stroke in November.

With the mourners still teary-eyed from Judd's performance, a bizarre video tribute was offered. In a tantalizing bit of footage filmed for an HBO tribute to Perkins that never materialized, the original hillbilly cat is seen talking to Paul McCartney, who is explaining to him how he and John Lennon used to play Carl's records at a slower speed so they could write down every lyric he sang --"See, we couldn't understand your accent!" McCartney explained. "But Carl Perkins was an enormous influence on all the Beatles."

Then the video went off into weird directions -- Perkins introducing but not playing with Eric Clapton; McCartney doing a live version of "Golden Slumber" with no Perkins in sight; Elton John performing at a concert where Perkins also appeared, although Perkins didn't play with Elton. At the end, though, the footage was strictly Perkins in concert, some of it from the mid-'50s, when his brothers Jay and Clayton were still with him, along with drummer W.S. "Fluke" Holland, now Johnny Cash's drummer. Some were reminded, seeing Holland on screen, that Cash, one of Perkins' closest friends, had remained in Nashville, too ill to attend.

Judd then returned, with Skaggs and Cyrus, to sing a spirited version of "Daddy Sang Bass," one of Perkins' biggest hits as a songwriter (Cash's original version was #1 for three months in 1968) that worked in spite of the woebegone Cyrus' painful attempts to sing the "Daddy sang bass" line.

Then, with the mood suddenly jaunty, Judd looked into the audience and said, "George, is there something you wanted to do?" The congregation stirred. Suddenly, standing there with an acoustic guitar, was George Harrison, clean-shaven, hair shoulder length and parted in the middle, looking about 20 years younger than in recent photos and videos.

"God bless Carl," he said, and launched into "Your True Love," the B-side of "Matchbox," issued in January 1957. It was a note-perfect version of the original, complete with guitar solo. And in that moment, the circle was complete: In Harrison's style was the foundation he had learned from Perkins' records and built on in shaping his own instrumental signature as the Beatles evolved a new style of rock 'n' roll built in part on the lessons they all had absorbed from listening to Sun records. And in a moment, it was over.

David McGee is the author of the Carl Perkins biography, "Go, Cat, Go!: The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, the King of Rockabilly."

[Mon., Jan. 26, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]