To the uninitiated, the biography of Jerry Lee Lewis in 2022 read like a list of rock tropes so basic you can't believe they all happened to one man.
Born to a poor Louisiana family that included a lot of famous Southerners (including cousins Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart), Jerry Lee's parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano and hoped he would honor the Lord in song. What they got instead was a firebrand, whose boogie-woogie sensibilities galvanized and scandalized the record-buying public. His white-hot success on the pop charts would dry up with a wedding to a 13-year-old cousin, but his performing flame wouldn't be extinguished for decades; he transitioned successfully to country music and was still a concert draw into the 21st century. Just this week, before he passed away at 87 years of age on October 28, his death was falsely reported by several outlets. It seemed nothing could kill this man.
With his death, the early concept of rock music - those handsome, devilish white boys synthesizing the sound of Black-originated blues and soul with country and folk traditions - etches a little deeper into history and further away from memory. His onetime Sun label mates (Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins) who'd showed up for a fabled 1956 session at the Memphis studio, have long been gone. Such is the inexorable march of time. Yet how lucky we are that his records survive and thrive. Those early singles - "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" perhaps spring to mind most quickly - were played for children of my generation as a primer on good ol' American pop music, with nary a thought to the raw sexuality and danger that lurked with every pump of the ivories and those vocal gesticulations. (Feel what happens when he does that "M-m-m-m-m...feels good.")
It's an obvious choice, but a record like 1964's Live At The Star-Club provides an insight into how nothing but God Himself could stop the Killer on the loose. That year - with Elvis in cinematic purgatory, Perkins' chart fortunes fading and Cash stuck deeper in a rut of pills - it would be Lewis' opportunity to define rock music against the British Invasion. Stephen Thomas Erlewine might've said it best in his review for Allmusic: "Compared to this, thrash metal sounds tame, the Stooges sound constrained, hardcore punk seems neutered, and the Sex Pistols sound like wimps."
There isn't much more to say that the music can't articulate better. Keep his music flame alive...it feels good.
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RIP Jerry Lee Lewis...yeah no one else like him...even the wild Little Richard couldn't overpower him...I want to get a good anthology now...in February, I'm seeing his sister Linda Gail Lewis & niece Annie on the Outlaw Country Cruise #7...that just got a little more interesting...
Great, influential rock and roller. Obviously.
Also a pedophile, adulterer, spousal abuser, and all around violent, unsavory man. Some believe “The Killer” actually killed one of his (Seven) and ex-wives.
Compared to all that, tax evasion seems one of his more charming traits.
Hey Guy look here, so glad you are without sin, as it gives you the authority to throw the first stone......PEDOPHILE?? Certain states in out country have different ages of consent. "some believe" is not exactly proof my friend...but if you are looking for work, you'd qualify to write for the New York Times, or Washington Post...or give your reports on the MS Media!!! God will judge, and as long as he is saved, and repented of his sins, the blood of Jesus wipes the slate clean...not just not guilty but INNOCENT!!! You ought to be shamed of yourself!!
Amen
If you are grown adult having sex or marrying a 13 year old girl you are a pedophile
Doesn't law allowed to marry the girl of that age in those days in the USA? At least some part of the country. So you can't call him a pedophile!
So you are saying Jerry should get a pass on that pedophile stuff? May him and R. Kelly burn in you know where. People should not be honoring this man. Music was good but the man was trash.
God bless Jerry Lee. R. I. P.
i havent seem any one mention the passing of a TRUE pioneer the great art laboe. he single handly created the original sound label but the start of the oldies but goldies series. no one i have heard ever said nothin bad bout this guy.. once i had to answer the phone at this one stop i was working and it was him. i told him how much i respected him and he was very gracious. a true gentlemen. RIP art.