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.
KIller…..hoping all is well…..you’ve done so so so so much for allowing Me to listen and absorb your Music into my SOUL…..Thank You for your years of Music
I truly love you with all my heart Jerry, you are the reason I play music myself and have been the biggest inspiration to me all my life. I am 27, with three children, and one of the proudest moments of my life was hearing my three year old son ask me if I could do his hair like Jerry Lee’s!!!! I appreciate you Jerry and everything you have done for music. You are the greatest that has ever been!!!!
With much love,
Eli Daniels Suveg
Happy Birthday Jerry! You were so kind as to allow me to lean on your piano while performing ‘Great Balls of Fire’ 1962 at the Velvet Swing, Hammond. I have always wanted to thank you personally for that. I am sure that the audience must have thought I was part of the show. But I was just enjoying you. I still do. So Thank you belatedly and thank you for your faaaaaaantastic contribution to the world with your talents.
Incredible music! You are such a legend and inspitation.
Dear Jerry Lee lewis you are so cool I love you I hope that you are doing well? I’m disabled it’s been hard was wondering if you could mail me some autograph stuff for my bday it would be neat too hear from you.
-Ryan Roman
Jerry Lee, I can’t even begin to tell you how your music has driven me. I’ve been a drummer since I was six years old and growing up in the 60’s I was exposed to the post fledgling years of rock & roll. Your style always had a driving beat with many places open to percussive expression and I was a kid in a candy store with it. I could go on and on but I know you’ve already heard it many times and I would never want to waste your time. Thank you for the music and the thrill of its experience.
I have always been a fan ! I got to see you live at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way several years ago. I loved you then & I love you now ! Keep on keeping on …….Killer !
Love you, Jerry Lee Lewis. Was so glad to see Jimmy Swaggart, Donnie, and Gabe to help celebrate your birthday. I have prayed to God for uears to see you all together, loving the Lord. Mickey too. God bless you all. As I have loved you all with no judgement. Wish you and Jimmy would make an album. Would be the greatest for you both. Sending my love to you all.
Keep on rocking !!!
Jerry thank you for the music
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JERRY LEE LEWIS, YOU ARE THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE I COULD GIVE THAT TITLE TO . I HAVE SEVERAL OF YOUR ALBUMS THAT YOU AUTOGRAPHED FOR ME. I WILL NEVER FORGET YOUR PERFORMANCES, THEY WERE THE GREATEST. WISH I COULD MEET YOU AGAIN.. JUST KEEP ON BANGING ON THE IVORY AND HAVING FUN.
Hello Mr Lewis Happy belated birthday 🎉🎁 to A true legend I love your music 🎶🎶 but my all time fave is whole lotta shaken I to am from ms down south about an Hour from natchez Im 47 but grew up on your music 🎶 🎶 never in my life time would I ever have imagined that I would be wishing a legend from ms a happy birthday it’s like a dream a dream come true best wishes and many more me lewis 😘😘
Happy birthday
I married a girl from Ferriday named Ruth Ellen, and I owned a business there for many years. I met Miss Frankie (Jerry’s sister) in 1985 and I’ve seen Jerry Lee perform live 3 times. Born in 1957 to a very young couple, I was rocking in the cradle to the music of Jerry Lee Lewis.
My youngest daughter learned how to play the piano very young, and when we introduced her to Jerry Lee’s music, that was it! She wanted to play like Jerry Lee Lewis. Miss Frankie found out and gave her encouragement, and it meant a lot to us.
All of the Lewis’s are fine people and the world is blessed to have been able to experience the music and performances of ‘The Killer’. As long as there is music, his style will continue to influence people all over the world.
God bless them all,
Jerry, TE ADMIRO!!!, Feliz Cumpleaños!!
Te saludo desde Camarones, Chubut, Argentina!
Te deseo Lo mejor!!
Stay healthy and eat well old friend. D.
Happy Birthday Jerry Lee !!!
Thank you for the music. We love the sound of your piano ! You are the greatest Rock n Roll player ever !
We have seen you in two concerts in Vienna, Austria.
Have a good time and best wishes from Austria (Europe)
Andy und Fritz
Hi Jerry , I love the tour of your life and career , wishing you Happy Birthday , I’m Mickey Gilley cousin Debbie Hilbun Walker from Baskin , Aunt Irene and the family came every Sunday to our house.love you Jerry and Judith ,take care
Happy Birthday Sir
Am a big fan of yours and my triw brother Ron is your biggest , he met you in Las Vegas when you were playing at Rockabillys
And escorted you and your wife to airport
He is not on Facebook , but just wanted you to know
Stay well God Bless Sir
Jerry hey I’m huge fan you mean alote too me thanks for being awesome. I hope u are doing well? I was wondering for my bday could u send me some signed stuff I’m disabled it would mean alote too me I’ve been. Sad i need cheering up. Hope too hear back from you soon.
Ryan Roman
Postava z inej galaxie? Nie, priamo odtiaľto, zo Zeme…
Veľká vďaka za veľké dielo a silné zdravie:
Soy admirador de tu musica.
Feliz cumpleaños Jerry.
Muy buen espectaculo.
Desde ARGENTINA te saludo, fui a verte cuando estuviste aca en Buenos Aires.
Saludos
Happy Birthday Jerry Lee Lewis. My family just loves your music it is so moving. I am 58 and have been listening to your music since I was a teen. My children are crazy about your music and many talents. Them piano’s really took a beating. But really could talk. We love you and your music thank you for sharing your many talents just love your songs. Rhythm is the heart of it and soul together is love thank you may God bless you and give you many more years. If it is possible you. Maybe can produce a great song love and hugs to you from me and my family.🥰🥰😉😊
Jerrythanx for, being true all these years 👍😇
Hello, with my husband we admire him a lot,
Happy Birthday, we wish you the best,
greetings from Argentina