Luther Monroe Perkins (January 8, 1928 – August 5, 1968) was an American country musicguitarist and a member of the Tennessee Three, the backup band for singer Johnny Cash. Perkins was an iconic figure in what would become known as rockabilly music. His creatively simple, sparsely-embellished, rhythmic use of Fender Esquire, Jazzmaster and Jaguar guitars is credited for creating Cash's signature "boom-chicka-boom" style.
There is lots of controversy over what he played. To be clear, he played a Fender Esquire, not a telecaster. He never played a telecaster. Mostly the Esquire and less of the Jazzmaster and Jaguar. He used a Fender amp with a built in super reverb and delay stomp box. He also used flat wound strings.
His original Esquire had a volume control problem. It could not be lowered. To fix this, he practiced muting the strings with his right hand muting the strings. He played the main chords (E,A,D,C,F,G,B7) by either strumming or picking. To strum an E as an example, you would pick the open E, strum the chord, pick the a string, strum and so on. To pick an E as an example. , you would pick the open E, hit the D string, pick the A string, and D again, then repeat. This pretty much is how its done. To find an easier explanation, go to Youtube and type in Luther Perkins Boom-Chicka-Boom Lesson *Redone. This is where I learned and it helped a lot.