S/D Jerry Lee Lewis

A few years back I was flipping TV channels and I saw JLL, looking uncomfortably, cohosting some kind of Hawaiian Tropic bikini contest-cum-informercial.

"Search: his country records on Mercury, there are a number of compilations"

Is there a particular Mercury compilation you'd recommend?

Also, wouldn't it be great if JLL did a Don't Give Up on Me style record, like hook him up with a good producer and some great songs.

Yeah, I kind of copped out of that didn't I? Mostly b/c I wasn't sure what's in print and what's not. Killer Country is probably the best bet, but there were a few volumes called Killer: The Mercury Years which are more exhaustive.

I wish the man continued success and happiness, but I don't know that the world needs another Jerry Lee Lewis record, what with the umpteen Bear Family box sets.

Tosches' "Hellfire" is pretty essential too. Kind of scary. The funniest thing about it though is that at the end, you can tell that Tosches is setting up Lewis' imminent death. And yet here we are 25 years after that book was first published and the Killer is still killing. He'll probably outlive Tosches anyway.

the live tapes from the very spartan 77 tour of Europe where Jerry tells the Germans to fuck off about 28 times

destroy: upcoming patched-together-via-the-studio duets album

"Overdubbin's like makin' love to a woman: you can't phone it in."
JLL

"Got a Maytag tongue with a sensitive taster"

RIP Mack Vickrey

by the way, there are oodles and oodles of unreleased tapes of JLL (I'm not talkin' Bear Family, neither, Killer) from the mid-seventies on. There's a few hours of Jerry Lee asolo at the piano when he got that Godawful Sire record for Andy Paley which are wildly impromptu, musically exquisite and funny as hell.

allmusic The Whole Note

Anyone heard it? It's exciting to think that JLL's Johnny Cash style revival might be upon us. It's about time.

http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000A6XAWO.01-A2380A3TX9IM30._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

1. Rock and Roll with Jimmy Page
2. Before the Night Is Over with B.B. King
3. Pink Cadillac - with Bruce Springsteen
4. Evening Gown - with Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood
5. You Don't Have to Go - with Neil Young
6. Twilight - with Robbie Robertson
7. Travelin' Band - with John Fogerty
8. That Kind of Fool - with Keith Richards
9. Sweet Little 16 - with Ringo Starr
10. Just a Bummin' Around - with Merle Haggard
11. Honky Tonk Woman - with Kid Rock
12. What's Made Milwaukee Famous - with Rod Stewart
13. Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age - with George Jones
14. Couple More Years - with Willie Nelson
15. Old Glory - with Toby Keith
16. Trouble in Mind - with Eric Clapton
17. I Saw Her Standing There - with Little Richard
18. Lost Highway - with Delaney Bramlett
19. Hadacohl Boogie - with Buddy Guy
20. Irish Heart Beat - with Don Henley
21. The Pilgrim Ch. 33 - with Kris Kristofferson

wow, Live At the Star Club absolutely smokes! The drumming on "Good Golly Miss Molly"! I don't know if this is one of those "fake crowd" live albums but the crowd seems pretty nuts, and who wouldn't be: I imagine JLL was physically all over the place. In fact I think his vocals are the weakest part of the album, but he was such a physical performer that I reckon it was hard to sing. And I gather that part of his appeal is a kind of cool intensity, so that singing too wildly would give too much away.

Huh, I think his singing's great on that album.
BTW Jerry Rocks on the Bear Family label, a single disc covering 1957-1977, is awesome. It's got by far the best-sounding versions of his early Sun stuff.

The singing is great, but a lot cooler than the white heat of the rest of the performance, and so (for what I'm getting out of the record on first listen) less good than the rest.

wow, Live At the Star Club absolutely smokes!

Yeah, it does indeedy. There's another 2-on-1 live album from Bear Family called "Greatest Live Shows On Earth" which doesn't even come close to "Star Club".

I still need a 2 or 3CD condensation of his Sun stuff. One disc isn't enough and the mondo Bear Family box is too much.

Star Club is off the hook, it's true. It's not a fake live album, is it? That would kinda break my heart! Or not, it would still be awesome.

by the way, there are oodles and oodles of unreleased tapes of JLL (I'm not talkin' Bear Family, neither, Killer) from the mid-seventies on. There's a few hours of Jerry Lee asolo at the piano when he got that Godawful Sire record for Andy Paley which are wildly impromptu, musically exquisite and funny as hell.

anybody have any of these? ysi?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FA7XZAPZL._SS400_.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evUNYDXfnHo

76 today. I love playing this clip for my class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yRdDnrB5kM

I forgot to tell my story, though, about how his marriage derailed his career. "There were just three problems..."

We had this one around the house when I was a kid, still one of my favorites:

http://991.com/newGallery/Jerry-Lee-Lewis-The-Greatest-Live-373286.jpg

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/482391_549044151802491_351044905_n.jpg

I ended up quite happy with "Jerry Lee Rocks" from Bear Family, a single disc collection of his rockingest tunes. Their ...Rocks series is awesome in general, got about 8 or 9 so far.

Charly's "Sun Essentials" is a fantastic, affordable box set covering that period. 4 Discs, 120+ songs, quality annotation. Biggest quibbles are the omission of "Sail Away" (duet w/Charlie Rich) and the thematic programming (splitting individual discs half Rock/half Country or traditional) is kinda "eh?" at times, an idea better on paper than in execution.

Egads, Amazon has that set for http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Essentials-Jerry-Lee-Lewis/dp/B000H8SEAS/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1363750310&sr=1-1&keywords=jerry+lee+lewis+sun+essentials7.55, although it appears to be the reissue w/downsized packaging. I got my Dad the earlier longbook squarebound version for Father's Day ages ago.

I meant http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Essentials-Jerry-Lee-Lewis/dp/B000H8SEAS/ref=sr_1_1_title_0_main?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1363750310&sr=1-1&keywords=jerry+lee+lewis+sun+essentials7.55

good deal. that live comp from last year is pretty rad, some good bonus stuff on the vegas disc.

Saw this on fb: A postcard from '65 showing him in the kind of place he was getting booked into at the time:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/431996_203737946441906_1825785831_n.jpg

haha, holy shit

haviin fun w/the killer on tv 1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pMerbObbcQ

Really love the slinky version of Rambling Rose I have by him. Sounds like it should be used as an ideal model for the song. But I bet most people are used to the falsetto sung MC5 one.

Also love the use of guitar on his material, remember thinking it sounded about a decade early when I was first listening to it, but don't have recording dates for the material I have.

Saw this on fb: A postcard from '65 showing him in the kind of place he was getting booked into at the time:

OTOH, tell me you would not love to see a show at tarry town

i assume everybody has heard that long theological conversation between JLL and sam phillips that's on the bear family box set?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that photo. Is the band stationed down the hill because the club is too tiny? It's definitely narrow, but who knows how far it goes back? Or is the band just too loud for the diners? (xpost)

it's an outdoor thing. terry town was an amusement park in southern tennessee. kind of fair grounds type of thing.

also JLL is a fine-looking man. check him out at about 11:10 in that video posted above

one show i saw with jerry lee he had trouble getting his foot on the keyboard. god bless him for keeping on.

i assume everybody has heard that long theological conversation between JLL and sam phillips that's on the bear family box set?

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, May 29, 2013 1:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stanley Booth used a transcript of this dialogue as the epigraph for the chapter chronicling Altamont in The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones.

And yes, i would have loved to have seen Jerry Lee at Terry Town (w/ a taco plate at La Casa Restaurant afterwards too).

oh yeah, he's probably a murderer too...

http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2012/12/19/bgs-the-strange-and-mysterious-death-of-mrs-jerry-lee-lewis/

*but his phrasing

I should also emphasize, you can't just play the song, you have to try replicating the performance that's on the record to really appreciate what Lewis is doing.

Probably my issue too, hearing it too many times before I was 15 (especially as a soundbite on commercials for K-Tel and similar '50s compilations). I kind of group "Great Balls of Fire" with "All Shook Up" and "Chantilly Lace"--goofy novelties. (And if you love them, believe me, I understand; there are goofy novelties I love too, like Nervous Norvus's "Transfusion.") "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," by way of contrast, sounds really sinister to me, like "Who Do You Love."

The Book of Rock Lists, from 1980, had Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard tied for best rock keyboard player, but Lewis was a lot more adept and adaptable a player.

Here's Harry "The Hipster" Gibson in 1945, think Jerry Lee must have been a fan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8Swpw9yZ5w

Listening to Live at the Star Club, so tuff

I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but I wish they'd included that story about Jerry Lee Lewis showing up at Graceland and screaming "I'm the King!" in Elvis. (I can't remember, but I don't think Lewis turned up anywhere in the film.)

The Greatest Live Show on Earth from 1964 is not quite as wild as Star Club but well worth hearing

For those who haven't already read it, the long 1984 Rolling Stone article about the death of Shawn Stevens Lewis is important for understanding how fucked up and evil JLL was and how his milieu enabled his worst behavior: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-strange-and-mysterious-death-of-mrs-jerry-lee-lewis-179980/

For Spotify users, if you want to hear the complete original Star Club album, go straight to The Killer Live: 1964-1970, which begins with all of Star Club and then continues with all of The Greatest Live Show On Earth and his other period live sets.

A great blues number

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0REuVsNVBk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu740yz-cOI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h90cfSZ65sg

Not pictured: The Parents of America losing their collective shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs_bkhqJmRI

There's a whole movie in this four minutes of dialogue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-wsEcmwJK0

The Sequel: Having Fun With Jerry Lee On Stage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeNk5hE4cGY

"the live tapes from the very spartan 77 tour of Europe where Jerry tells the Germans to fuck off about 28 times"

This is weird. Scroll down to "Lewis performs at Guilfest, Guildford, in 2012"

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/28/jerry-lee-lewis-obituary

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that guy don't look a thing like Lewis.

I can't find much info, but from what little I did find, that was actually a 50s tribute act called "Elvis & Friends." So no, not Jerry Lee.

Jerry Lee wasn't there in Guildford in 2012, but at least Elvis and his Friends were.

From the NY Times obit:

Asked by reporters if 13 wasn’t a little young to be married, Mr. Lewis’s wife said: “Oh, no, not at all. Age doesn’t matter back home. You can marry at 10 if you can find a husband.”

Oof.

I have the Killer Country compilation (not the studio album of the same title) and want to dig a little deeper into his peak country period. Any album recommendations?

Go play "Live At The Star Club" really loudly!!

I was just listening to it! (it's mentioned as a highlight of his lost years in the Variety piece). Unbelievable.
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, October 28, 2022 2:04 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah this is probably the rawest, most explosive live album I've ever heard. The way his piano is constantly inching ahead of the already manic beat, pure punk rock

Listening now but don’t think I can get past “High School Confidential.”

Meaning I just wanna listen to that on repeat.

xxxp Another Place, Another Time, She Still Comes Around and She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye are great albums. The two CD All Killer No Filler! anthology from Rhino also does a very good job of exploring his career with fine liner notes by Jimmy Guterman. (Guterman originally tried to do a triple CD set, but he was told to cut it down.) FWIW, if you remove the Sun tracks and the live Star Club cuts from the aforementioned LP, what's left of All Killer No Filler! squeezes into one 79 minute CD and makes a fine post-Sun compilation.

you should hear his version of john cage's 4'33", wow

_The Greatest Live Show on Earth_ from 1964 is not quite as wild as Star Club but well worth hearing

For those who haven't already read it, the long 1984 Rolling Stone article about the death of Shawn Stevens Lewis is important for understanding how fucked up and evil JLL was and how his milieu enabled his worst behavior: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-strange-and-mysterious-death-of-mrs-jerry-lee-lewis-179980🕸/🕸

thanks

rollingstone.com doesn't paywall me and I don't have a subscription, not sure what's up with that

A little bit of me wants to say that Lewis's country stuff is great and worth listening to

But a big bit of me has to say I don't feel like praising this monster just cos he's dead

Yeah, I hear you. Talk about having to separate the art from the artist. I knew some of this but it sure puts it all in stark terms: https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/jerry-lee-lewis-obituary-1935-2022.html

Never in the history of art!

That Vulture article is really well-written, thanks for the link. (It’s helpful that it summarizes the core details of the Rolling Stone piece… I tried reading that a few days ago, but it’s incredibly long.)

Yes, same.

Still trying to locate the Jo Carol Pierce song about him.

Just sent some messages to some of my regexes in Texas.

thanks

rollingstone.com doesn't paywall me and I don't have a subscription, not sure what's up with that

I think Bob Mehr's remembrance probably nails it - he saw Lewis perform many times but only met him once when Lewis was already about 80 and stuck in bed thanks to a back ailment. From that interview alone, Lewis came off as the "purest artist and most frightening person" Mehr had ever encountered.

I'm not sure if it's the nature of culture or just an instinctive fallacy to engage in an artist's work mostly as a reflection of their character, but I've always been wary of that, whether it ends up in some kind of hero worship or unforgiving demonization. There's a great line by Jimmy Stewart's character in Anatomy of a Murder where he says "I've had to learn that people aren't just good or just bad - people are many things," and that's especially true for artists since they tend to be more complex and interesting than your average person, which is probably why they end up dedicating their lives to creative work.

Lewis was always scary, and he's not a guy I'd hesitate to find guilty if I was on the jury for one of his many offenses. But he's a fascinating guy - that's not a quality that hinges on upstanding character - and a lot of his most compelling work probably comes out of that. Here's a guy who knows he's got a gift for rock n' roll and delivers on it even though he truly believes it's the devil's music and could very well damn him for eternity. Meanwhile, his best country records are probably the ones where he convincingly portrays a shit who knows his demons and believes he's too weak to escape them despite the damage it's doing to himself, his marriage/relationship, etc. It's terrible we can find those things in his personal life, but I don't think those are great records for voyeuristic value. They bring to mind the things Rainer Werner Fassbinder used to say about great movies, particularly Douglas Sirk's work, and how they make you ask "what’s really going on with me and my life?" and how they leave you with a better understanding of what the world's like and what it's doing to you.

"I've had to learn that people aren't just good or just bad - people are many things"

At the end of Joe Posnanski's chapter on Tris Speaker in The Baseball 100, he quotes Buck O'Neil: "People aren't one thing."

WIthout Jerry how would we have had that magical scene in Top Gun

We mark the life of Lewis, who died Oct. 28, by listening to archival interviews with his sister, pianist/singer Linda Gail Lewis, and with Myra Lewis Williams, who married Jerry Lee when she was 13.

How country music allowed Jerry Lee Lewis to vary his wild-man persona
November 8, 20222:06 PM ET
Heard on Fresh Air
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