Jackhammered eighth notes, and a lotta attitude and self-belief: Jerry Lee Lewis, 1935-2022
The Killer has, unbelievably, raked his hand across the 88’s for the last time. And fuck you, TMZ!
Conway Twitty related the anecdote to a Rolling Stone reporter in 1980, about 2/3rds of the way through a definitive profile of Jerry Lee Lewis, the piano-thumpin’, rockin’ rollin’ hillbilly colossus we lost today at the age of 87.
The man who brought rampaging, untutored, genius-level boogie woogie piano to rock ‘n’ roll via immortal Sun Records sides like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” was booked at a waterfront bucket of blood in Florida during his career’s nadir in the early Sixties. The planet’s pearl-clutching at his marriage to 13-year-old second cousin once removed Myra Gale Brown had extinguished a fireball of a career. And now this exiled royal was enduring a string of one-nighters in backwater towns to pay the bills.
The Killer and his band walked in for soundcheck that afternoon, the headliner firmly chomping onto a cigar as he surveyed his surroundings through wraparound shades. He walked onto the stage and approached an upright piano that had seen better days. Opening the lid, he perfunctorily hit the keys. Yep, it was out of tune.
Jerry Lee’s face remained impassive. “Son,” he addressed the club owner, “this ain’t gonna do. I need a proper pee-annah.” The club owner offered a litany of excuses – it’s too late, the show starts in a few hours, there’s no time to rent a new piano or get this one tuned, etc., etc.
Wordlessly, Jerry Lee exhaled some cigar smoke and pushed the piano off the stage. Then he pushed it across the floor, out the front door, across the street and up the docks. Then he pushed it off the docks, into the bay. It’s likely still there on the ocean floor, where bass and perch play “Chopsticks” on it every day.
The club owner watched the entire thing, jaw agape, speechless. Jerry Lee calmly walked back, pausing before the club owner before blowing cigar smoke in his face: “Now, go get me a goddamned pee-annah like I done tol’ ya, son!”
Such tales abound in the legend of Jerry Lee Lewis, born nine months and 21 days after Elvis Presley. Presley obviously opened Sam Phillips’ front doors at Sun to a rash of country boys gettin’ real, real GONE on the blues with his 1954-55 string of yellow label rockabilly singles. From the moment “Whole Lotta Shakin’” was issued in March 1957 until that ill-fated British tour that uncovered his marriage to Brown – daughter of Jerry Lee’s bassist, JW Brown – one year and two months later, The Killer’s incandescent artistry, blowtorch live presence and skyrocketing career trajectory threatened to topple Presley from rock ‘n’ roll’s throne.
It was the stuff of those tales that blunted his career trajectory. Most of them were true, most of them best told in Nick Tosches’ brilliant, definitive biography Hellfire, which told his life story in a language derived from the King James Bible: “And fame did lift her skirts unto Jerry Lee, and it was good.”
Yes, Jerry Lee Lewis was a man of astonishing appetites – pharmaceutical, alcoholic, sexual. Instant fame gave him unlimited access to all the above. He drank of them deeply, relentlessly. He shot his bassist, married many times over, smashed his car into the Graceland gates and waved a pistol demanding an audience with Elvis in 1976, and was dogged by the IRS. He also grew up steeped in Southern religious tradition, and the dichotomy between his being a world-class sinner and his desire to serve the Lord was likely the energy that drove his art. He knew the Good Lord gave him his untutored talent – he apparently never had a single piano lesson, though he passed on his knowledge to cousins Jimmy Swaggart and Mickey Gilley, as well as sister Linda Gail Lewis. He also had an unshakeable self-confidence, and was his own best promoter: “Oscar Peterson, all them muthahumpers – I can play more pee-annah with my dick than all of them together,” he told Keyboard magazine in the early ‘80s.
People couldn’t stop talking about him. People hated him for his ego. Fact is, he had the chops to back up the boasting. But people sure love to moralize. They probably go to church Sunday morning after drinking and cheating on their wives or husbands on Saturday night, too. Jerry Lee Lewis was a consummate artist, period. Everything he did was astonishing and individual. He could take any song – country, rock ‘n’ roll, blues, standards – and make it his own. And do it all in one take. Anything else doesn't concern us..
Honestly, isn’t it the music that counts, in the end? And let’s be real – he didn’t play rockabilly, despite his initial fame coming on the label that created and defined rockabilly. What Jerry Lee Lewis played was rock ‘n’ roll. Even his honky tonk hits that revived his career in the late ‘60s and ‘70s were played with rock ‘n’ roll drive. Blame it on his relentless left hand and protopunk attack, all jackhammered eighth notes and a lotta attitude and self-belief. That V-8 drive and inhuman energy drove everything he did. Even “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” was rock ‘n’ roll in Jerry Lee Lewis’ hands.
It was onstage that you could best marvel in The Killer’s larger-than-life creativity. He was utterly unpredictable, as he drove rhythm sections and pianos beyond the breaking point. Working without a setlist, he was liable to play anything. And liable to do anything: Setting his piano on fire during “Great Balls Of Fire” to upstage headliner Chuck Berry, play his keyboard with his feet, his butt or his elbows, kick away his piano stool, the mic – whatever was in his way. He might say “fuck it” to his entire repertoire and preach the gospel, boogie woogie-ing his way through a hymnal in the way that got him kicked outta bible college in Waxahatchie, Texas in the mid-’50s. He followed his muse anyplace she would take him. The original ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll generation were wildmen and women beyond comparison. Jerry Lee Lewis was simply the wildest of them all.
You can spit in any direction and find a great Jerry Lee Lewis recording. But to truly understand the man’s essence, there are two lengths of audiotape you absolutely have to hear. The first is possibly the greatest live album ever made, Jerry Lee Lewis Live At The Star-Club Hamburg. An in-person session from 1964 cut at the dive famed as The Beatles’ proving ground in their black leather days, recent hitmakers The Nashville Teens of “Tobacco Road” fame strain to keep pace with Jerry Lee. The younger British Beat group inhale his exhaust as he barrelhouses his way through every one of his Sun Records hits, plus Barrett Strong’s “Money,” Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and two of Little Richard’s immortals before uncorking a nearly-five-minute “Whole Lotta Shakin’” that surely reduced the entire club, audience, band, bandstand and piano to matchsticks. Kick Out The Jams, The Who Live At Leeds, Cheap Trick At Budokan – none of ‘em hold a candle. Ask Joe Bonomo. Jerry Lee Lewis Live At The Star-Club Hamburg is so great, he wrote an entire book about it, Lost And Found. You need to read it. But not before you hear the album.
The other essential Jerry Lee Lewis recording features no music whatsoever. Clandestinely recorded by Sun engineer Jack Clement at the “Great Balls Of Fire” session, as Sam Phillips struggled to convince a Jerry Lee Lewis suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit, now believing Otis Blackwell’s latest copyright was some sorta Satanic hymn.
“It says MAKE MERRY with THE JOY OF GOD!” Jerry Lee’s voice rises in cadences he surely learned in Bible college. “But when it comes to worldly music – rock ‘n’ roll or anything like that – you’ve just brought yourself into the world, and you haven’t come out of the world, and you’re still a sinner. And as a sinner, you can be saved and born again and made as a lil’ chile! And walk before God and be holy! And brother, you’ve got to be so pure that NO SIN shall enter there! NO SIN!”
He gathers speed. “You’ve got to WALK AND TALK WITH GOD!”
Phillips, perhaps mindful of the costs of this session being held up and keeping his artist’s career momentum rolling, tries to be the voice of reason, warning Jerry Lee of “extremism.”
“You mean to tell me that you’re gonna take the Bible,” Phillips intones, in his own Southern Petecostal-ish cadences, “ you’re gonna take God’s word, and you’re gonna revolutionize THE WHOLE UNIVERSE?!”
The two verbally lock horns further, as guitarist Billy Lee Riley and drummer James Van Eaton fume: “Let’s cut it, man!” Finally, the artist erupts as after the producer tries to convince him he can save souls through rock ‘n’ roll.
“No, no, NOOOO!” Jerry Lee yells. “HOW CAN I SAVE SOULS WHEN I’VE GOT THE DEVIL IN ME?!”
He cut the song, of course. And had his second biggest hit. That was The Killer, unpredictable to the end. And a consummate artist who could put his stamp on any song. Years later, Sam Phillips – a man who worked with Elvis, Howlin’ Wolf, Johnny Cash and Charlie Rich – said Jerry Lee Lewis was “one of the most talented human beings to walk on God's earth.” That should likely be Jerry Lee Lewis’ epitaph.
R.I.P., Killer.
For further reading, please click on Chris Morris’ obituary in Variety. In fact, why did I bother with this nonsense, when Chris wrote the definitive word on Jerry Lee Lewis?
Thank you Linda Gail Lewis, Danny B. Harvey, Andy Schwartz, Chris Morris, Joe Bonomo and Jeff Smith.
Oh, and fuck TMZ for erroneously reporting Jerry Lee Lewis’ death two days ago! That was fucking irresponsible!
#timstegall #timnapalmstegall #timnapalmstegallsubstack #punkjournalism #jerryleelewis #obituary #rocknrollpioneer #sunrecords #samphillips #elvispresley #jimmyswaggart #mickeygilley #lindagaillewis #wholelottashakingoinon #greatballsoffire #jerryleelewisliveatthestarclubhamburg #joebonomo #lostandfound #chrismorris