Jerry Lee Lewis, the first rock and roll star to rise to fame with a string of hits in the 1950s, had died, his publicist told CBS News. He was 87.
Lewis, the last survivor of a generation of revolutionary artists that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, Rep. Zach Farnum said in a statement. TMZ site.
“Lewis, perhaps the last true and wonderful icon in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, whose combination of blues, gospel, country, honky-tonk and raw, emotional performances threatened a young Elvis Presley so much that it brought him to tears, has passed away,” he said Friday. He said he died at a home in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis, with his wife, Judith, by his side.
Nicknamed “The Killer,” Lewis is known for his lively performances, which included antics such as betting the piano with his feet and lighting the burning instrument.
Lewis scored a hit in 1957 with his rendition of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. That same year he followed with “Great Balls of Fire”, which reached number 2 on the Billboard chart. The song lent its name to the 1989 biopic, starring Dennis Quad as Lewis.
Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his somber tenor and heartbreaking asides, violent tempos and impetuous glissandi, arrogant grimace and matted blond hair. In the “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” feature on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water in a brazier.
But in his personal life, he became enraged in a way that could have ended his career, and he almost did at the time.
For a brief period, in 1958, he was a candidate to upgrade Presley as the first maker of rock hits after Elvis was drafted into the army. (maybe as many as 12), she his cousin, and he still married to his ex-wife. His cancelled excursion put him on the radio blacklist and his source of income was reduced overnight to virtually nothing.
“I would have rearranged my life a little differently, but I never hid anything from people,” Lewis told The Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about marriage. “I went on with my life as usual. “
For decades to come, Lewis battled drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes, and physical illness. Two of his many marriages resulted in the untimely death of his wife. Brown herself divorced in the early 1970s and later alleges physical and intellectual cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.
“If I were still married to Jerry, I’d be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.
Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry nonetheless forgave him, long after he stopped having hits. He has won 3 Grammy Awards and recorded with some of the biggest stars in the industry. In 2006, Lewis released “Last Man Standing”, with Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, B. B. King and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album “Mean Old Man”.
In “The Illustrated History of Rock by Rolling Stone”
“This time I said, ‘Listen, man, let’s combine and draw a line under this: a peace treaty, you know,'” he explained. Lewis still played the old hits on stage, but on the radio he would sing country.
Lewis had a streak of the 10 most sensible country hits between 1967 and 1970, and softened a bit at all. Still Comes Around,” and a dry canopy from a vintage abandonment ballad, “She Even Woke Me Goodbye. “It was still popular in Europe and a 1964 album, “Live at the Star Club, Hamburg”, is widely regarded as one of the biggest concert records.
A 1973 performance turned out to be more awkward: Lewis sang for the Grand Ole Opry and broke two long-standing rules: no swear words or non-country songs.
“I’m a rock and roll, country and western, rhythm and blues —–,” he told the audience.
Lewis was married seven times and rarely walked away from trouble or death. His fourth wife, Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, drowned in a swimming pool in 1982 while filing for divorce. His fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, 23 years his junior, died of an obvious drug overdose in 1983. Within a year, Lewis had married Kerrie McCarver, then 21. She filed for divorce in 1986, accusing him of physical violence and infidelity. in 2005 after several years of separation. The couple had one son, Jerry Lee III.
Another son from a previous marriage, 3-year-old Steve Allen Lewis, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and his son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a twist of fate at age 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori. Leigh, and is survived by his wife Judith.
His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but enjoyed his coins in coins and ended up owing thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 in his former apartment near Nesbit, Mississippi, all with a piano-shaped pool — he set up a 900 phone number that enthusiasts can call to receive a recorded message at $2. 75 a minute.
The son of former smuggler Elmo Lewis and cousin of television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley, Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. Tool that only the rich in your city can buy: a piano. His life was replaced when his father stopped in his truck one day and gave him a set of dark wood vertical keyboards.
“My eyes almost fell out of my head,” Lewis in “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” written by Rick Bragg and published in 2014.
He immediately picked up the piano and began squeezing into the black juke joints and soaking up everything from the gospel to boogie-woogie. An early clash between secular music and frightened music, he left school at age 16, intending to be a pianist preacher. Lewis briefly attended Southwestern Assemblies of God University in Waxahachie, Texas, a fundamentalist Bible college, but was expelled, apparently, for betting on the “wrong” kind of music.
A veteran of truck stops in his early twenties, Lewis left for Memphis in 1956 and performed at Sun Records, the music home of Elvis, Perkins and Cash. Lewis returned and temporarily rushed to “Whole Lotta Shakin'” in one take.
“I knew it was a good fortune when I cut it,” he later said. “Sam Phillips’ idea that it would be too risky, I couldn’t do it. If it’s risky, well, I’m sorry. “
In 1986, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and others, he was part of the first class of members of The Rock.
He won a Grammy in 1987 for an interview album that was cited as Best Spoken Word Recording, and won a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2005. The following year, “Whole Lotta Shakin'” was decided by the National Library of Congress. Recording Registry, whose board praised the “boogie piano propeller perfectly complemented through the dynamism of JM Van Eaton’s full drum kit. Listeners on the recording, like Lewis himself, struggled to sit still during the performance. “
A Bible school classmate, Pearry Green, remembers reuniting Lewis years later and asking him if he still played the devil’s music.
“Yes, I am,” Lewis replied. But you know, it’s weird, the same music that I got kicked out of school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is that I know I’m betting on Satan and they don’t. “
Earlier this month, Lewis was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. According to his Facebook page, he was too ill to attend the ceremony, but his old friend Kris Kristofferson traveled to Memphis to present him with the award in person.
On Sunday, Jerry Lee Lewis was nevertheless inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. The mythical Jerry Lee was too sick. . .