Jerry Lee Lewis loves his fans. Sign Jerry Lee Lewis’ Official Guestbook by adding your comment below.
Jerry Lee Lewis loves his fans. Sign Jerry Lee Lewis’ Official Guestbook by adding your comment below.
Somewhere in the world, in a mean little honky-tonk or big music hall or church basement rec room, someone is playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song. Wherever there is a piano, someone is shouting…
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane…
“But they won’t play it like the Killer,” Lewis liked to say, as if he needed to make sure the whole world was hearing him right, hearing the pounding genius of it, in songs like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Breathless” and “Great Balls of Fire.”
“’Cause,” he liked to say, “ain’t but one of me.”
You broke my will
But what a thrill…
Lewis, perhaps the last true, great icon of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, whose marriage of blues, gospel, country, honky-tonk and raw, pounding stage performances so threatened a young Elvis Presley that it made him cry, has died.
He was there at the beginning, with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and the rest, and watched them fade away one by one till it was him alone to bear witness, and sing of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll.
“Who would have thought,” he said, near the end of his days, “it would be me?”
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!
He suffered through the last years of his life from various illnesses and injuries that, his physicians have often said, should have taken him decades ago; he had abused his body so thoroughly as a young man he was given little chance of lasting through middle age, let alone old age.
“He is ready to leave,” his wife Judith said, just before his death.
Lewis, who performed everything from “Over the Rainbow” to Al Jolson, who played the Opry and the Apollo and even Shakespeare, was 87 years old.
Some music historians have wondered if Lewis, regarded by his fans and many music historians as rock’s first, great wild man, might be indestructible; his obituary has been written, re-written, then shelved, gathering dust for a day that seemed inevitable, but seemed to never come. He defied death in his old age just as he shrugged off the hard-driving, self-destructive lifestyle of his younger years, to play his music to a worldwide audience across seven decades, decorate the walls of his home with Grammys and gold records, and spawn a million outrageous stories — most of them true.
Once, when asked by a biographer: “Is it true that…”
“Yeah,” interrupted Lewis, without waiting to hear the particulars, “it probably was.”
His beginnings sounded like myth. His father, Elmo, and mother, Mamie, mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano, after he climbed onto a piano bench and, without ever having touched a keyboard before, began to play. His nickname, Killer, had nothing to do with his playing, but came from a schoolroom fight in Ferriday when he tried to choke a grown man with his own necktie; still, it fit the man, the musician to come, but there was more to him than a barroom piano pounder who sometimes kept a pistol in his pants.
Musicians and music journalists called him a true virtuoso, whose music was so rich and complex that some of them swore there were two pianos on stage instead of one. He played honky-tonk and blues across the same keyboard in the same instant, could play melody with both hands. He sang rockabilly before he knew it had a name, sang blues, gospel and country in the same set and sometimes the same breath, to become No. 24 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Sam Phillips, who launched the careers of Elvis and Lewis at Sun Records in Memphis, called Lewis the most talented person he had ever seen. A talent that made him one of the very few to be inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s first class in 1986 and, most recently this past week, at long last, into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
As Lewis stacked hits on the charts in ’57 and Elvis received his draft notice, the reigning king of rock ‘n’ roll drove to Sun Records in tears, to tell Lewis: “You can have it.”
But if Jerry Lee’s life was a comet that streaked across the sky of American music, it was also a thing that scorched him inside and out, and so many of the people around him.
Judith, his seventh wife, was by his side when he passed away at his home in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis. He told her, in his final days, that he welcomed the hereafter, and that he was not afraid.
Born into the Assembly of God church in his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, he never stopped believing, even when his lifestyle made the specter of hell seem closer. His greatest fear, that he would be condemned to a lake of fire for playing what many in his Pentecostal faith called “the devil’s music,” haunted him. He shared his fear with Elvis, who begged him to never mention it again. Lewis thought Elvis, also a Pentecostal, was the one person who might understand, but he died in ’77, leaving Lewis to wonder, alone.
He had prayed every day across his long life for forgiveness, and for salvation. His was a church that believed in miracles; why, he sometimes wondered, should he not be one of them? He found peace near the end of his life in a simple idea: that a music that brought such joy to so many could only come from God, “and the devil,” he said, “didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”
“He said he was ready to be with Jesus,” said Judith.
His last album was a gospel record with his cousin, lifetime televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who had preached against his music when they were younger. In Jerry Lee’s final months, they took turns at the keyboard, singing songs they learned as children: “Old Rugged Cross” and “Lily of the Valley” and “In the Garden.” Lewis, though his voice and body were weakened by his injury and a recent stroke, seemed happy, content.
Much of his life, Lewis had seemed determined to leave the world in the great fire he sang about. He set pianos ablaze, busted hecklers in the head with the butt-end of his microphone stand and rammed the gates of Graceland with his Rolls Royce. He shot holes in the wall of his Memphis office with a .38 revolver, shot his bass player in the chest, “by accident,” with a .357. His life, at different times, was a blur of high-speed chases and Crown Royal. The DEA met his planes on the runway. Fortunes came and went; all the wild rock musicians who came after him, he said, were mostly amateurs. Keith Richards tried to toss up a bottle of Crown Royal and catch it by the neck, like him, “but he never did it right … wasted a bunch of good liquor.”
But if you asked him, in his waning years, what he hoped people would say about him, he had a simple answer.
“You can tell ‘em I played the piano and sang rock ‘n’ roll.”
His career, like his body, seemed doomed a dozen times.
After soaring to the top of the charts in ’57 with songs like “Shakin’” and “High School Confidential,” he was castigated in the press for his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra. His rock’n’ roll star seemed to burn out even as it began to rise, and after a few big hits in the early 1960s his career seemed to be over. He responded by loading two cars with instruments and musicians and hitting the road, to play some big rooms, still, but also every honky-tonk and beer joint that would pay him to perform. He fought his way out of beer joints in Iowa, then drove all night and all day to another town and another show.
Sometimes he gave them magic and sometimes, if the mood was on him, he gave them less, but in his old age he swore he gave them the magic all the time. In ’64, record producers taped his show at a Hamburg, Germany, nightclub and made what would become music history. Live at the Star Club would be regarded as one the rawest, wildest, and greatest live albums of all time.
Then, in a twist that surprised many of his rock fans, Jerry Lee Lewis went country. “Another Place, Another Time,” was just the beginning of a string of soulful country chart-toppers that made him rich and famous all over again. He had more than 30 songs reach Billboard’s Top 10, including “To Make Love Sweeter for You” and a haunting “Would You Take Another Chance on Me.” It seemed only natural to Jerry Lee. He had always believed that Hank Williams hung the moon.
In this new stardom he finally played the Grand Ole Opry, the organization that had once snubbed him, and ignored the two-song protocol to play what and for long as he pleased, even playing through the commercials. Then, in perhaps the oddest twist of his musical career, he was cast as Shakespeare’s sinister Iago in a musical production in Los Angeles; he was a natural.
Once again, he flew around the world, sometimes on his own plane, and once again his lifestyle made almost as many headlines as his music. Tragedy followed him; he buried two sons. His health began to fail, marriages failed, but somehow he always rallied, always kept playing, for big paydays, or for free in a Memphis nightclub, living the life he sang about in his songs.
In 2006, his Last Man Standing album sold a million copies, his best-selling album of his long career. He followed that with another success, Mean Ol’ Man. You could hear the ghosts of the old honky-tonks in them, as if Jerry Lee Lewis had, truly, found a way to stop time. He did a duet with Springsteen.
His Lifetime Achievement Grammy was a kind of crowning achievement, and he appeared at Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame shows to accept his due and to school the whippersnappers on how it was done.
In 2012, when he was 76, he fell in love and married Judith, and they lived quietly – quietly for Jerry Lee Lewis – in northern Mississippi, though Lewis continued to do shows here in the U.S. and abroad. That year they took a trip to Ferriday to visit the family cemetery, and to drive across the bridge to Natchez where, as a boy, Jerry Lee used to dangle over the girders high above the brown water of the Mississippi and the passing boats below. The other boys begged him to get down, but he just hung there, grinning, till they were in tears. When asked if he was scared, a lifetime later, he just looked surprised. The Killer didn’t get scared. But looking down at the river as an old man, he said he might have been crazy.
Later, they drove past the church where he beat the piano to pieces with his cousins Swaggart and Mickey Gilley, who would go on to country music stardom, pounding a little blues and honky-tonk into the hymns they were supposed to be practicing.
Just across town from the tiny church had once stood the other temple of his musical education, a blues joint called Haney’s Big House, where some of the biggest acts in the country came to play. As a little boy, he snuck in the door and hid under the tables to hear rolling blues piano and wicked guitar. And somewhere in between it all, between the hymnals and the beer joints, between Hank Williams and Ray Charles, he found something that was his alone. It was always a waste of breath to ask if he had any regrets.
He had a million, and he had none. It all just depended on the song that was running through his head at the time.
“I’ve had an interesting life,” he said, in his 2014 biography, “haven’t I?”
Written by Rick Bragg
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Jerry Lee Lewis is survived by his wife, Judith Coghlan Lewis, his children Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Pheobe Lewis and Lori Lancaster, sister Linda Gail Lewis, cousin Jimmy Swaggart and many grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents Elmo and Mamie Lewis, sons Steve Allen Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis Jr., his siblings Elmo Lewis Jr. and Frankie Jean Lewis and his cousin Mickey Gilley.
Services and more information will be announced in the following days. In lieu of flowers, the Lewis family requests donations be made in Jerry Lee Lewis’ honor to the Arthritis Foundation or MusiCares – the non-profit foundation of the GRAMMYs / National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Lewis,
Thank you very much for your music. You really are The Killer!! From Brazil, from a big fan. Take care yourself and your family. God bless you all.
Hi there Mr. Lewis I have just discovered your music and I love it! I came upon an article about you and got curious and looked up everything about you interviews, music videos, pictures. I really like the videos of you singing Whole Lotta Shaking Goin On and Breathless in black and white. You really know how to get the crowd into your music and the screamin, crazy. Your awsome Mr. Lewis! I agree with what Carl Perkins said once. If your snappin your fingers and tappin that foot, you not thinkin about the electric bill or the gas bill or any problems for that matter. Your mind is on that music.
Wow – you are a great inspiration to me. I hope to see you live one more time in Las Vegas. We have a duo called The NorVikes and love to play your songs!
Mr. Lewis, You are truly the King of Rock N’ Roll. Your talent and versatility cannot be matched in any genre of music. As I listen to your 1970’s country songs while write this, I am constantly blown away, no matter how many times I listen. You are Timeless! I saw you live around 1994-95 in New Orleans at the House of Blues where I worked at the time. Absolutly amazing! Thank You for all your music and for sharing it with the world. You will live forever through it! God Bless!
Hello Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis,
My childhood was rocked by Rock and Roll and Boogie-Woogie. I also danced them with my dad who was a great old-fashioned dancer like we don’t do anymore.
I want to tell you all the admiration that my husband and I have for you and your music. Each day in our house it is Jerry Lee s’Place.
We would so much have liked to see you in concert and meet you. We like you very much.
Take care of yourself.
Christian and Chantal from Belgium.
I discovered your music when I went to Vandy, just after your 1973 concert at Dudley Field. The next year I had a friend who was very into ‘oldies’, and he introduced me to you and many other rockers!
My first album was the London sessions, altho I also got the special re-issues from Sun some years later. We even saw you live at a smaller Nashville venue in 75 or so – you were fabulous & the ladies were really groovin to your show! Loved watching the piano being played by a real pro – classical is all very fine, but it has its place.
Of course, as I near 65, it is hard to believe I have loved your music all these years!
I’m a fan who favors your Gospel songs- you bring a touch to Gospel music that others can’t with your upbeat approach & tempo. Would love to hear you do a full Gospel album or two.
God Bless you and yours sir+
I’m watching great balls of fire and have to say a very good movie I love the music you are one of the greats
The original Pianoman!
Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis. I started listening to your music when I was 15. I’m 59 now and to me you’re still the greatest of them all! I saw you perform twice; once in my home country (The Netherlands) and once in Toronto. I think I have some 50 of your LPs, but recently bought three Bear Family boxes so I can enjoy your music in my car. Two years ago I finally visited Memphis and the Sun Studios and even drove past the Lewis Ranch. It’s amazing that after all these years you’re really the last man standing!
I would love to see you in concert I live in Texas my mom send you back when she was younger and I just think you’re the king..
I saw you in Wilmington several years ago – what a performance!! I pray you have accepted Jesus and made peace with him.
Dear Jerry Lee Lewis,
Hello there…I am one of your cousins, like 3rd 4th or something. I never met you but I always wanted to. My dad’s family (Lewis) lives in Colorado. I am 9 and live in New Jersey. My name is Brayan Lewis.
I SAW JERRY LEE LEWIS BACK IN THE 70.S GREAT SHOT IN HOUSTON TX
I STILL TODAY PLAY HIS RECORDS LOVE TO LISTEN TO HIM
YOUR THE BEST
LEE
I’m only 40 years old but I listened to all your songs since my parents always play them at our home. It’s like your songs are the soundtrack of my life. Thanks for the music!
Only one Jerry Lee. Then ,Now and Forever After. Gods Speed.
Mr Jerry Lee Lewis, While I grew up listening to you I can not say I have a favorite because I love everything that you ever did !
I just wanted to say Thank you for being so brave to be yourself when it wasn’t the in thing to do .
You were ahead of your time .
Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis,
If it wasn’t for yourself and Little Richard, I would never have had a Bible in my hand.
Here’s the way I see things at this point in time.
What does it mean to be a Christian. Maybe Jimmy Swaggart can answer that one….
For me, there are a few different types of Christianity.
1. The Latin Mass / Barrett’s Auction… (bla-bla-bla-bla-baby-lon-the-grate)- (Catholic/Protestant)
2. A Version where Jesus never died… (Islam)
3. Mother Theresa before she was famous… (Hinduism)
4. Confucianism, Buddhism…. (Probably half Catholic/Protestant)
5. Biblical Christianity…. (Haggai 2: 7-9… Luke 14:29-33…Gideon in the Old Testament had only 300 men… Romans 8:31)
And there are other things like the immortal soul, is hell a real fire or is it annihilation etc….
People have to make a decision TODAY who they are going to serve! (Hebrews 3:7-9). (Joshua 24:15)
I think Jehovah’s Witnesses need to be Born Again as well. (Ezekiel 37:9).
We all need to advertise the Kingdom.
If people are following anybody other than Our Lord Jesus Christ they are following a Killer.
When the Pope in Rome decided that all Christians should sing the gospel in a dead language, they kept the original writings of the Law, Prophets and Apostles in a safe place. The unadulterated teachings of Christ weren’t lost. The Pope in Rome acted as a restraint against apostasy.
Malachi Chapter 3… Gods people need to be refined.
Revelation 8:1 has been fulfilled, over the past week. (Following the year day principle 1/2 hour = 1 week). People weren’t worshiping either in synagogues churches or at their materialistic shrines).
I think people need to hear this message. Maybe the fire will come from heaven first, I’m not sure.
People need to repent and turn around now fairly quick, because the time left is getting shorter.
Regards,
PJ.
Watching you come out and play even though you were ill was a high light of my honky-tonk days. A true prefomer!
You’re a natural born killer, Jerry Lee. None cooler.
God Bless you!!!!!
Jerry Lee … I watched you on u tube until the wee hours of the morning yesterday … you are
a singing sensation! Always loved your unique interpretation of the many songs done by other
artists – plus the originals of your own are simply magnificent … Over The Rainbow is my favorite classic song that you sing with such amazing beauty.. Wishing you well Jerry and hoping you soon
will be touring again making us all very happy and grateful,,,,
Much love and wellness to the best rock and roller there is!!!
I’ve been a lifelong fan-my father introduced me to your music when I was 5, & have loved it ever since! I play a little piano, rhythm guitar, bass & my strong suit, drums-when I was younger, & in better shape than I am now, would dream of being in a jam session-would still love it, but might have to slow just a tad bit for me. Great to hear that you have recovered from your stroke, being able to go back to the music-keep on rockin!!!!
Jerry, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t hear that motha humpin piano pumpin in my ears. I first heard that voice at New River Ranch in Pennsylvania. Over 50 years ago. I remember once, you stood up from the piano and walked to the steps and sat down. You had the mic in your hand and said, “If somebody will get this piano tuned I will get on with this show!” Those stage hands started scrambling like a nest of ants under a magnifying glass!! They finally got it tuned and you finished the most incredible show I had ever seen !!
Keep rockin Jerry and the world will keep rockin with you!! The Country Music Hall of Fame will finally come to their senses and do what is right.
Jerry,
I’ve been listening to your music for nearly my entire life (I’m only 42). As a young boy, I had a friend who’s parents had a piano in their living room. I’d never had a lesson and couldn’t read music, but something drew me to it and I would sit for hours and just pluck away and figure out melodies by ear.
My parents took note of my interest and at 9-years-old I started taking lessons from my Czechoslovakian next-door neighbor.
I vividly remember going to her house for my first lesson and having her ask me, “So what type of music do you want to play?” I had no idea. She then being playing different styles – classical, jazz, and boogie-woogie. When she played that boogie-woogie, with that left hand running that bass line, I was hooked! Again, my parents took note and bought me one of your greatest hits albums. I became an instant fan! I didn’t care if it was rock-&-roll, country, or gospel… if you were playing, I loved it!
I’ve never had the privilege to see you in concert. But I hope some day you’ll be able to make it out to California again so I can knock one off of my bucket list! God bless you Jerry Lee!