Even by the exaggerated requirements of rock ‘n’ roll, Jerry Lee Lewis was a person who lived dangerously and left chaos in his wake, and in ways in which weren’t at all times humorous. His nickname since his teenagers was “Killer,” and it implied an aggression that appeared to return to him naturally. In 1958, Jerry Lee’s profession took a nosedive when, after a handful of hits like “Nice Balls of Fireplace” and “Complete Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” it was found his spouse was solely 13 years outdated; including insult to damage, the previous Myra Gale Brown was his third bride, and Lewis hadn’t completed divorcing the second when he and Myra exchanged vows. His urge for food for liquor and tablets was the stuff of legend, and he had little endurance for members of his band or crew who did not need to increase Hell with him. In September 1976, Lewis was enjoying together with his gun when he shot his bass participant, Norman Owens, twice within the chest whereas aiming at a Coke bottle. Two months later, Jerry Lee was arrested exterior Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee when he drunkenly drove into the gate, staggered from the automobile with a pistol in his hand, and demanded to see Elvis Presley instantly. He almost died in 1981 from a extreme abdomen situation introduced on by years of alcohol and drug abuse. In 1983, his fifth spouse, Shawn Michelle Lewis, died underneath mysterious circumstances simply 77 days after they had been wed; a 1984 investigative piece in Rolling Stone stopped wanting saying she died as the results of foul play, whereas giving readers each cause to suppose it. And there have been numerous tales of Jerry Lee lacking gigs or blowing recording periods whereas on a bender, heckling his personal viewers, or showing on stage, enjoying a dismissive twenty minutes, after which strolling off because the promoters had been left to placate an offended crowd. Greater than as soon as, Jerry Lee would proudly state the apparent: “I am a imply son of a bitch.”
So why did anybody hassle to concentrate to this man who, by all accounts, was as poor a task mannequin as rock ‘n’ roll has supplied us? Easy – the person was a genius. There have been only a few figures within the first period of rock ‘n’ roll (or ever) whose music was extra highly effective and engrossing than that of Jerry Lee Lewis. To listen to Lewis in his prime was to listen to a person push barrelhouse piano to the purpose of superb insanity, performing with a mania that was held in examine solely by the supreme confidence of the person on the keyboard. Lewis’s signature hits of the Fifties – “Nice Balls of Fireplace,” “Complete Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Breathless,” “Excessive College Confidential” – had been shot by means of with an depth that few of his friends might match, and like his fellow Louisiana piano man Little Richard, the music he made refused to sound quaint with the passage of time, sounding as feral within the twenty first Century because the day it was minimize. Alongside together with his excellent rock ‘n’ roll sides, within the late Nineteen Sixties Jerry Lee skilled a profession revival on the nation charts, and whereas his C&W hits are much less readily remembered, the perfect of them rank with the best onerous nation of the period. Lewis might summon an abject loneliness and heartbreak in songs like “One other Place, One other Time, “What Made Milwaukee Well-known (Made A Loser Out Of Me,” and “She Nonetheless Comes Round (To Love What’s Left Of Me)” that spoke of a person who knew greater than just a little concerning the punishing morning that follows an evening of sin. And when Jerry Lee selected to get rowdy, he hadn’t misplaced the contact – his reside reveals had been a loopy mashup of nation, rock, boogie, blues, outdated requirements, and the rest that popped into his thoughts. Jerry Lee was fond of claiming, “There have been many nice performers, however solely 4 nice stylists – Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Jerry Lee Lewis.” His expertise was sufficient to make the conceitedness of that assertion appear virtually cheap.
Jerry Lee was on no account blind to his failings. He was raised within the Meeting of God Church, a Pentacostal denomination that was strict even by Fundamentalist requirements, and he by no means misplaced his religion though he realized at an early age he was constitutionally incapable of dwelling by its strictures. He was only a boy when he first heard boogie woogie and rhythm and blues pouring out of roadhouses in his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, and the decision of the night time sank its hooks into him early. He attended a bible faculty in Waxahachie, Texas with a watch in the direction of turning into a preacher, however he found wine, ladies, and music had been available in close by Dallas, and when he performed a model of “My God is Actual” at a Sunday chapel assembly clearly knowledgeable by the sinful roadhouse sounds he beloved, he was expelled and despatched again house. At the same time as he turned one of many first nice exponents of rock ‘n’ roll, he was sure the music he performed was blasphemous, and wasn’t afraid to say so. His recording profession started at Solar Data, the Memphis-based label that was the crucible for rockabilly, introducing Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Billy Lee Riley, Roy Orbison, and plenty of extra to the world. There’s a exceptional audio artifact from the night time in 1957 when Jerry Lee recorded “Nice Balls of Fireplace” on the Solar Studios. He immediately had second ideas concerning the tune – he believed the fireplace of the title was a corrupt parody of the fiery imagery of the Pentecost, and he argued with producer and label founder Sam Phillips concerning the propriety of slicing the music.
“It says, ‘Make merry with the Pleasure of God, solely,'” Jerry Lee declares, quoting scripture. “However in terms of worldly music, rock and roll, anythin’ like that, you’re on the earth, and also you haven’t come from out of the world, and also you’re nonetheless a sinner. And also you’re a sinner. You’re a sinner except you might be saved and born once more, and be made as just a little baby, and stroll earlier than God, and be holy.” Phillips makes an attempt to take a extra average place, saying, “Now look, Jerry, spiritual conviction does not imply something resembling extremism.” Jerry Lee, nevertheless, holds agency, and when Phillips suggests a rock ‘n’ curler can save souls, he bitterly rejects the notion, and shouts, “Man, I’ve the Satan in me! If I did not have, I might be a Christian!” Evidently, Phillips received the argument, not less than to the purpose the place Jerry Lee recorded the music that bought properly over 1,000,000 copies, however there are actually dozens of interviews with Lewis wherein he bluntly declared he was sure he would go to Hell when he dies. As he as soon as instructed Nick Tosches (who would later write the good and startling Lewis biography Hellfire), “I am draggin’ the viewers to Hell with me. How am I gonna get them to Heaven with ‘Complete Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’? You’ll be able to’t serve two masters; you will hate one and love the opposite.”
As a facet observe, it is value mentioning that Jerry Lee’s cousin was Jimmy Swaggart, the evangelist who was born in the identical 12 months and went on to a massively profitable profession in tv and radio. Jerry Lee clearly admired Jimmy, calling him “a powerhouse for God” and producing a few of his gospel albums. It could be tempting to see them as The Good Cousin and The Depraved Cousin if it weren’t for the actual fact Swaggart could be caught in a couple of intercourse scandal – the primary in 1986 – when it was found he was a frequent consumer of prostitutes, one in every of whom bluntly described him by saying, “He was low-cost, however he was very fast.” One other of Jerry Lee’s cousins was Mickey Gilley, the nation star and nightclub proprietor who inherited a few of the household’s expertise with out their extra troublesome convictions and appetites, at the same time as he presided over Gilley’s, the world’s largest honky tonk, within the Seventies and ’80s.
The one factor Jerry Lee believed in with the identical certainty of his Damnation was his expertise, and the report reveals his confidence had a foundation in actual fact. One other exceptional fly-on-the-wall recording from the Solar Studios got here from December 1956, when Elvis Presley, now signed to RCA and essentially the most profitable new singer within the land, dropped by to say hello to Sam Phillips as Carl Perkins was within the midst of a recording session. Jerry Lee was sitting in on piano, months earlier than he scored his first hit and loved his personal stardom. The three had been quickly swapping songs, largely outdated gospel tunes that got here from a shared childhood of singing in church, and engineer Jack Clement turned on the tape because it was taking place. An image was snapped throughout the session, with Johnny Money there together with Elvis, Carl, and Jerry Lee. They turned referred to as “The Million Greenback Quartet,” though Money isn’t audible on the tape, which circulated as a bootleg for years earlier than it lastly noticed approved launch in 1990. Elvis’s easy charisma and very good voice places him at middle stage, Perkins cheerfully provides assist, singing concord and becoming a member of in on guitar. Jerry Lee, after all, has no real interest in being so well mannered. His vocals fly in circles round Elvis’s leads, his piano work is a subdued, churchy variation on his proudly pumping fashion, and it is instantly apparent he was out to impress Elvis whereas on the similar time proving to everybody he was essentially the most gifted man within the room. If the scenario did not really supply him the chance to conquer Elvis, nobody can deny he made an impression.
And even when destiny was treating Jerry Lee with contempt, his music did not lose its energy. Jerry Lee and Myra Gale had been married for 5 months when, throughout his first tour of the UK in 1958, the press discovered the lady accompanying the American rocker was his spouse, and that she wasn’t 15, as they’d initially been instructed, however 13. Not unreasonably, the British press had been outraged, and the scandal ended his tour after only some days, with Jerry Lee completely unapologetic concerning the scenario. His American profession crashed as rapidly as his stardom in England, and for the higher a part of ten years, he performed wherever somebody would pay him for a gig, going from $10,000 to $250 an evening, grimly decided {that a} comeback awaited him. A hearken to the information he made throughout his years in obscurity reveals he was singing and enjoying with the identical power he possessed throughout the top of his fame, and Dwell on the Star-Membership, Hamburg – a recording of a 1964 nightclub date in Germany – is without doubt one of the wildest and most intense reside albums you will ever hear, with Jerry Lee pounding the keys with unholy ferocity and howling like a attractive wolf, whereas his backing band (British rockers the Nashville Teenagers) battle to maintain up with the madman who has taken them on the journey of their lives. When you needed to choose only one album to outline what Jerry Lee might do when he felt he needed to show himself, it is the one to decide on; it has received a well-deserved repute as one of many best of all rock ‘n’ roll reside albums. (Dwell on the Star-Membership, Hamburg did not obtain an American launch on the time, and is at the moment obtainable in the US as a part of the three-disc set The Killer Dwell [1964-1970], together with three different reside albums documenting Jerry Lee’s command of the viewers.)
By the mid-Nineteen Eighties, Jerry Lee had skilled sufficient brushes with dying, monetary calamities, IRS repossessions, authorized issues, and comparable potential career-ending disasters with out testing that it appeared like somebody must make a film concerning the man, and 1989’s Nice Balls of Fireplace was an A-list manufacturing that seemingly honored the good man’s significance within the historical past of music. Sadly, it wasn’t particularly good, and Dennis Quaid’s efficiency as Jerry Lee was cartoonish in its overwrought theatrics, however the comfort prize was the music – Jerry Lee had re-recorded all his hits for the soundtrack, and he gave the impression of he’d barely aged a day since he minimize “Loopy Arms” in 1955.
In 1995, Sire Data signed Jerry Lee, and Andy Paley produced his newest comeback album, Younger Blood, which lacked focus and featured too many shifts of backing musicians, although the star of the present nonetheless sounded sport. Jerry Lee’s final nice comeback as a recording artist got here when Steve Bing, a profitable movie producer, businessman, and philanthropist, made it his enterprise to remind the world his favourite musician nonetheless had the products. He helped Jerry Lee by means of some monetary onerous occasions, and helped produce the 2006 album Final Man Standing. The periods noticed Jerry Lee performing alongside a lot of high shelf visitor stars, from Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger to George Jones and Willie Nelson, however the album belonged to Jerry Lee, and his performances, nonetheless muscular and impressed, had been exceptional, and onerous to think about they could possibly be the work of a 71-year-old man. Two extra albums in the identical vein adopted – 2010’s Imply Previous Man and 2014’s Rock & Roll Time – they usually confirmed Final Man Standing was no fluke, that Jerry Lee was nonetheless an artist who demanded respect.
Time appeared to lastly meet up with Jerry Lee in his final years; he grew frail, stop touring, and was hardly ever seen in public. On October 16, 2022, he was lastly inducted into the Nation Music Corridor of Fame; it was stated his prickly repute in Nashville and an notorious 1973 Grand Ol’ Opry efficiency wherein he performed far previous his allotted time, threw plenty of rock ‘n’ roll songs into his set, and dropped an F Bomb mid-show saved him from being honored sooner. Jerry Lee was too ailing to attend, and a photograph was circulated of Kris Kristofferson presenting him with the award at his house. A smiling Kristofferson stood subsequent to Jerry Lee’s mattress, because the Killer, trying extra like a wraith than a person, checked out him in sleepy disbelief. It was stated that Jerry Lee requested Kristofferson if he introduced him the pint he’d requested for; it was in all probability a joke, however from a person who commonly drained fifths in a single sitting within the Seventies, who might say for certain? Simply twelve days later, Jerry Lee Lewis lastly handed on, with many mourning the passing of one of many final true pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll within the Fifties, as others dutifully cited his numerous misdeeds. If there was ever an instance of an artist whose life and music reminded us that generally one should separate the artist from the artwork, it was Jerry Lee Lewis. His physique of labor is wealthy and rewarding sufficient that the compromise appears worthwhile.
