S/D Jerry Lee Lewis

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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KEN TUCKER