W.S. "Fluke" Holland, born in Saltillo, Tennessee, on April 22, 1935, played on all of Carl Perkins' Sun Records recordings before becoming Johnny Cash's only drummer and working with him for 37 years. After leaving Saltillo in 1948 when his mother remarried following his father's death, he moved with his family to Bemis, where his habit of calling people "flukes" gave him his nickname. In 1954 he met the Perkins Brothers Band, who also lived in Bemis, and although he did not play an instrument, he spent time with them while working as an apprentice air-conditioning technician. Sitting beside bassist Clayton Perkins on bandstands, he sometimes kept time on up-tempo songs by beating on the upright bass's curvature. In September 1954, as Carl Perkins sought an audition with Sun Records and wanted stronger rhythm for his rockabilly songs, Holland joined the band, borrowed a drum kit, and taught himself to play over several days before traveling to Memphis. His trademark backward drum setup came from not knowing the customary arrangement. After Perkins' first two records sold poorly, the third, "Blue Suede Shoes," became one of the first million-selling songs of the rock 'n' roll era. In March 1956, when Perkins' band was in a car wreck on the way to perform on NBC's "Perry Como Show" in New York, Holland pulled the unconscious Perkins from a water-filled ditch. Along with playing on Perkins' Sun recordings, Holland also took part in the Million Dollar Quartet session at Sun, when Perkins, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash played together for the first and only time. When Perkins left Sun in 1958, Holland stayed with him another year. That same year, Holland brought Jackson-area pianist Carl Mann to Sun, played on Mann's hit "Mona Lisa," and managed him until 1960. After falling out with both Perkins and Mann, marrying, and taking a job in Jackson as a land surveyor, he was called by Johnny Cash to join his band and became Cash's first and only drummer. He played on Cash's Folsom and San Quentin prison concerts and on nearly every recording session from 1960 until Cash retired from the road in 1997, and from 1980 to 1997 he also served as the group's road manager. He also played on the Statler Brothers' first hit, "Flowers on the Wall." After Cash retired from touring, Holland formed his own bands to perform at country and rockabilly festivals and shows in North America and Europe.