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Jerry
Lee Lewis |
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BORN: September 29, 1935,
Ferriday, LA
Is there an early rock & roller that has a crazier reputation than
the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis? His exploits as a piano-thumping egocentric
wild man with an unquenchable thirst for living have become the fodder
for numerous biographies, film documentaries, and a full-length
Hollywood movie. Certainly few other artists came to the party with more
ego and talent than he and lived to tell the tale. And certainly even
fewer could successfully channel that energy into their music and
prosper doing it as well as Jerry Lee. When he broke on the national
scene in 1957 with his classic "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On,"
he was every parents' worst nightmare ... continue
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perfectly realized: a long, blonde-haired Southerner who played the piano and
sang with uncontrolled fury and abandon, while simultaneously reveling in his
own sexuality. He was rock & roll's first great wild man and also rock &
roll's first great eclectic. Ignoring all manner of musical boundaries is
something that has not only allowed his music to have wide variety, but to
survive the fads and fashions as well. Whether singing a melancholy country
ballad, a lowdown blues or a blazing rocker, Lewis' wholesale commitment to the
moment brings forth performances that are totally grounded in his personality
and all singularly of one piece. Like the recordings of Hank Williams, Louis
Armstrong and few others, Jerry Lee's early recorded work is one of the most
amazing collections of American music in existence.
He was born to Elmo and Mamie Lewis on September 29, 1935. Though the family was
dirt poor, there was enough money to be had to purchase a third-hand upright
piano for the family's country shack in Ferriday, LA. Sharing piano lessons with
his two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart, a ten-year old Jerry Lee
showed remarkable aptitude toward the instrument. A visit from piano-playing
older cousin Carl McVoy unlocked the secrets to the boogie-woogie styles he was
hearing on the radio and across the tracks at Haney's Big House, owned by his
uncle, Lee Calhoun and catering to Blacks exclusively. Lewis mixed that up with
gospel and country and started coming up with his own style. He even mixed
genres in the way he syncopated his rhythms on the piano; his left hand
generally played a rock-solid boogie pattern while his right played the high
keys with much flamboyant filigree and showiness, equal parts gospel fervor and
Liberace showmanship. By the time he was 14, by all family accounts, he was as
good as he was ever going to get. Jerry Lee was already ready for prime time.
But his Mother Mamie had other plans for the young family prodigy. Not wanting
to squander Jerry Lee's gifts on the sordid world of show business, she enrolled
him in a bible college in Waxahatchie, Texas, secure in the knowledge that her
son would now be exclusively singing his songs to the Lord. But legend has it
that the Killer tore into a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God Is
Real" at a church assembly that sent him packing the same night. The split
personality of Jerry Lee, torn between the sacred and the profane (rock &
roll music), is something that has eaten away at him most of his adult life,
causing untold aberrant personality changes over the years with no clear-cut
answers to the problem. What is certain is that by the time a 21-year-old Jerry
Lee showed up in Memphis on the doorstep of the Sun studios, he had been thrown
out of bible college, been a complete failure as a sewing-machine salesman, been
turned down by most Nashville-based record companies and the Louisiana Hayride,
been married twice, in jail once and burned with the passion that he truly was
the next big thing.
Sam Phillips was on vacation when he arrived, but his assistant Jack Clement put
Roland Janes on guitar and J.M. Van Eaton on drums behind Jerry Lee, whose fluid
left hand made a bass player superfluous. This little unit would become the core
of Jerry Lee's recording band for almost the entire seven years he recorded at
Sun. The first single, a hopped-up rendition of Ralph Mooney's "Crazy
Arms," sold in respectable enough quantities that Phillips kept bringing
Lewis back in for more sessions, astounded by his prodigious memory for old
songs and his penchant for rocking them up. A few days after his first single
was released, Jerry Lee was in the Sun studios earning some Christmas money,
playing backup piano on a Carl Perkins session that yielded the classics
"Matchbox" and "Your True Love." At the tail end of the
recording, Elvis Presley showed up, Clement turned on the tape machine, and the
impromptu Million Dollar Quartet jam session ensued, with Perkins, Presley and
Lewis all having the time of their lives.
With the release of his first single, the road beckoned and it was here that
Jerry Lee's lasting stage persona was developed. Discouraged because he couldn't
dance around the stage strumming a guitar like Carl Perkins, he stood up in
midsong, kicked back the piano stool and, as Carl has so saliently pointed out,
"a new Jerry Lee Lewis was born." This new-found stage confidence was
not lost on Sam Phillips. While he loved the music of Carl Perkins and Johnny
Cash, he saw neither artist as a true contender to Elvis' throne; with Jerry Lee
he thought he had a real shot. For the first time in his very parsimonious life,
Sam Phillips threw every dime of promotional capital he had into Jerry Lee's
next single, and the gamble paid off a million times over. "Whole Lotta
Shakin' Goin' On" went to number one on the country and the R&B charts,
and was only held out of the top spot on the pop charts by Debbie Reynolds'
"Tammy." Suddenly Jerry Lee was the hottest, newest, most exciting
rock & roller out there. His television appearances and stage shows were
legendary for their manic energy, and his competitive nature to outdo anyone
else on the bill led to the story about how he once set his piano on fire at
set's end to make it impossible for Chuck Berry to follow his act. Nobody messed
with the Killer.
Jerry Lee's follow-up to "Shakin'" was another defining moment for his
career, as well as for rock & roll. "Great Balls of Fire" featured
only piano and drums, but sounded huge with Phillips' production behind it. It
got him into a rock & roll movie (Jamboree) and his fame was spreading to
such a degree that Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins left Sun to go to Columbia
Records. His next single, "Breathless," had a promotional tie-in with
Dick Clark's Saturday night "Bandstand" show, making it three hits in
a row for the newcomer.
But Jerry Lee was sowing the seeds of his own destruction in record time. He
sneaked off and married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, the daughter of
his bass-playing uncle, J.W. Brown. With the Killer insisting that she accompany
him on a debut tour of England, the British press got wind of the marriage and
proceeded to crucify him in the press. The tour was canceled and Jerry Lee
arrived back in the U.S. to find his career in absolute disarray. His records
were banned nationwide by radio stations and his booking price went from $10,
000 a night to $250 in any honky tonk that would still have him. Undeterred, he
kept right on doing what he had been doing, head unbowed and determined to make
it back to the bigs, Jerry Lee Lewis style. It took him almost a dozen years to
pull it off, but finally, with a sympathetic producer and a new record company
willing to exact a truce with country disc jockeys, the Killer found a new
groove, cutting one hit after another for Smash Records throughout the late '60s
into the '70s. Still playing rock & roll onstage whenever the mood struck
him (which was often) while keeping all his releases pure country struck a
creative bargain that suited Lewis well into the mid-'70s.
But while his career was soaring again, his personal life was falling apart. The
next decade and a half saw several marriages fall apart (starting with his
13-year-long union with Myra), the deaths of his parents and oldest son, battles
with the I.R.S. and bouts with alcohol and pills that frequently left him
hospitalized. Suddenly the Ferriday Fireball was nearing middle age and the
raging fire seemed to be burned out.
But the mid-'80s saw another jumpstart to his career. A movie entitled Great
Balls of Fire was about to be made of his life and Lewis was called in to sing
the songs for the soundtrack. Showing everyone who was the real Killer, Jerry
Lee sounded energetic enough to make you believe it was 1957 all over again with
the pilot light of inspiration still burning bright. He also got a boost back to
major-label land with a one-song appearance on the soundtrack for Dick Tracy.
With box sets and compilations, documentaries, a bioflick and his induction to
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame all celebrating his legacy, Jerry Lee still
continues to record and tour, delivering work that vacillates from tepid to
absolutely inspired. While his influence will continue to loom large until
there's no one left to play rock & roll piano anymore, the plain truth is
that there's only one Jerry Lee Lewis and American music will never see another
like him. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide
