Jerry Lee Lewis: The grand old man of rock 'n' roll
Jerry Lee Lewis is also known as “The Killer”. And Lewis, who was born on September 29, 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana, showed for decades that he fully deserves this nickname. Credible rumors and dubious facts combine in Lewis's unique, legendary rock 'n' roll life, which never fails to fascinate. Overnight, he rose to stardom with “Whole Lotta Shakin‘ Goin’ On”. He crashed just as quickly because of his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, and has been climbing the highest peaks all his life, but also going through the deepest valleys, producing scandal-prone stories in the chord.
The story goes that Lewis set fire to his piano at the end of a concert to steal the show from Chuck Berry, who was due to perform afterwards. A successful coup: the burning piano is now as much a part of music history as Berry's 'duck walk' and Elvis' legendary hip swing. Lewis has a very special relationship with the King of Rock'n'Roll. Friends in the early days at Sun Records, when both were part of Sam Phillips' million-dollar quartet alongside Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley's fame later gnaws more and more at Lewis's tarnished ego.
In 1976, after a few whiskeys, the Memphis police arrested Jerry Lee Lewis when he was drunk, with a gun in his hand, rampaging in front of Elvis's Graceland mansion and cursing the King loudly. Another time, Lewis, probably also not quite sober, accidentally shot his bassist and repeatedly came into conflict with the law for tax and drug offences. Alongside these rock 'n' roll clichés, Lewis has repeatedly suffered serious personal misfortunes. Two of his sons died tragically, as did two of his six wives.
Scandals and misfortunes
What is almost forgotten amidst all the scandals and misfortunes is that Jerry Lee sees himself as an obsessed musician who wants to be remembered for his eccentric piano playing and his very own rock 'n' style of rock 'n' roll: “When they look back on me I want ‘em to remember me not for all my wives, although I've had a few, and certainly not for any mansions or high livin’ money I made and spent. I want 'em to remember me simply for my music!”
Lewis's passion for music was apparent from an early age. He was introduced to black blues and gospel at church. At home, he would sing along to Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family on the radio. When young Jerry Lee sat down at the piano for the first time, his parents Elmo and Maimie were impressed and took out a second mortgage on their modest home to buy the 10-year-old Jerry his own piano.
An investment that would soon pay off. In the early years, father and son Lewis still frequent the honky tonks and brothels in the area, where Jerry Lee makes his first appearances. At the same time, he feels a strong commitment to the religious tradition of the South, which would come into conflict with his wild musical life throughout his life.
While still a teenager, he marries Dorothy, who is underage, after an affair, and then begins a relationship with Jane Mitchum, who is also still very young. To avoid a scandal, he enrolls in a Bible school in Texas for moral reformation, but is forced to leave quickly after a wild piano performance in the school church. Shortly afterwards, he hears an Elvis song on the radio and decides to go to Sam Phillips in Memphis.
He is not there, but his assistant Jack Clement records the track “Crazy Arms” with Lewis on piano, Roland Janes on guitar and J.M. Van Eaton on drums, which becomes a local hit. Sam Phillips invited Lewis to his studio to make further recordings, where he recorded some of his greatest hits such as “Whole Lotta Shakin‘ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls Of Fire”.
His many TV appearances
When Lewis was a guest of Sam Phillips in Memphis again shortly before Christmas to accompany Carl Perkins on the piano for his songs “Matchbox” and “Your True Love”, the other two Sun stars, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, also arrived. The joint jam session of the so-called Million Dollar Quartet on December 4, 1956, is one of the great rock 'n' roll classics and has lost none of its invigorating freshness to this day.
For Lewis, it would take another six months before his dream of a career in music would be fulfilled. On July 28, 1957, he appeared on the Steve Allen Show and became an overnight star with his wild piano playing. America discovered rock 'n' roll and “Whole Lotta Shakin‘ Goin’ On” stormed to the top of the country, R'n'B and pop charts, as did its successor “Great Balls of Fire”. Only his label colleagues Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley also managed to occupy the top spot in all three national charts with one song.
The double hat-trick, on the other hand, is unique in music history. With the hit singles “High School Confidential” and “Breathless”, Lewis adds more logs to the powerfully flickering rock'n'roll fire, which he regularly transforms into a true purgatory at his live concerts. At first he sits cautiously at the grand piano, but soon he kicks the stool away, screams suggestive lyrics into the microphone, abuses the keyboard with hands and feet alike, and finally climbs all over his instrument, completely beside himself. The world has never seen a performance like this.
And just as quickly as he rose to fame, he fell from grace shortly thereafter. When the press learned of the marriage between the 22-year-old Lewis and his 13-year-old cousin Myra during a tour of Great Britain in 1958, the scandal was complete and Lewis was no longer played on the radio or television. The fact that Jerry Lee did not divorce his two previous wives before marrying Myra further fueled the outrage.
A passionate Musician
Lewis remains as true to his passion for young girls throughout his life as he is to his passion for music, which he sums up in his usual direct way: “As long as they gimme a piano I'll be out there. They try to take that away, I'm gonna kick some ass.” No one takes the grand piano away from him, but Lewis has to continue his career in the rundown honky-tonks of the southern states, where he once again performs for a handful of dollars and a few free drinks in the evening.
Privately, Lewis's life was temporarily under a more favorable star. His wife Myra gave birth to their son Steve Allen, named after the well-known showmaster, in 1959, but just three years later their child drowned in the family swimming pool. Despite this stroke of fate, Lewis developed a new creative drive after moving from Sun to Mercury in the 1960s, which found expression in the albums “The Greatest Show On Earth” and “Live At The Star Club”.
By the end of the decade, Lewis had turned his back on rock 'n' roll. Country music was his new passion, which he indulged with the same virtuosity as he had previously done with rock 'n' roll on the album “Another Place Another Time”. At the same time, he reminded us of days gone by with “The Killer Rocks On”, without making an embarrassing figure of himself. His energy and creativity are still tangible here.
In 1970, after 18 years of marriage, his wife Myra divorced him, and Jerry Lee sought solace in alcohol and stimulants, which repeatedly brought him into conflict with the law until he signed on with Electra Records in 1978. The personal tragedies seemed never-ending: His son Jerry Lee Junior dies in a car accident, his fifth wife Shawn dies of an overdose, and Lewis only just escapes death in 1981 despite a stomach full of holes from his drug addiction.
In 1986, Jerry Lee Lewis receives the accolade for his contribution to pop music and is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The late 80s are a positive time for him again. His wife Kerrie gives birth to Jerry Lee III in 1987, and when Hollywood successfully releases the story of the 'killer's' life in 1989, Lewis can enjoy his late fame in peace and look back on an eventful life in his autobiography “Killer”, which is published in 1993.
The grand old man of rock 'n' roll
To this day, the grand old man of rock 'n' roll tours regularly and surprises with new releases, in which he combines rhythm 'n' blues, country, rock 'n' roll, blue grass and his idiosyncratic piano playing in ever-new ways. Along with artists such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino and Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis belongs to that generation of musicians who, without false modesty, can claim to have shaken modern pop music awake with their rocking grooves.
In 2006, the year of his 70th birthday, the “killer” makes a convincing comeback: On the 21-track album “Last Man Standing”, Jerry Lee Lewis invites duet partners. The guest list is impressive: Bruce Springsteen, Kid Rock, Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr and many other stars accept Lewis' invitation to the rock 'n' roll rendezvous. With a well-balanced mix of different songs, the artist has managed to create an impressive sign of life. Along the way, Lewis' relaxed piano playing shows many a younger musician where the rock rake actually hangs.
A similar thing happened in spring 2008 at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles: together with his old buddy Little Richard and John Fogerty, an estimated 17 million TV viewers saw him perform an energetic show. The old masters sat back to back at the piano, with Fogerty taking on the vocals of a rock'n'roll medley including the hits “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire”. The ease with which the 72-year-old killer still produces the highest notes from his heart is particularly impressive.
Even if no new studio recordings are made, one reissue label or another is constantly bringing out unreleased material or historical concert recordings. The most outstanding of these is “Live at the Star Club Hamburg” from 1964. Jerry Lee Lewis lives in the US state of Mississippi and marries for the seventh time in 2012. Three marriages ended because the wives died in accidents (car, swimming pool, overdose), and Lewis divorced three more times. In March 2020, he suffers a stroke, but gets off without too much damage. In May 2020, Little Richard, whose “Long Tall Sally” he covered, died at the age of 87. He was the only pioneer of the first wave of rock'n'roll still alive. Thus, of all people, a “killer” finds himself in the position of the last survivor.
There is a movie from 1989 about Jerry Lee's life called “Great Balls Of Fire! A Life for Rock'n'Roll” with Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee and Winona Ryder in the role of his third wife Myra. The Killer also appears in the film “Walk The Line” (2005), about the life of Sun labelmate Johnny Cash, where Waylon Payne plays the “Killer”.
On October 28, 2022, Jerry Lee Lewis dies at home in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 87.
