Jerry Lee Lewis, the hard- driving rockabilly artist whose pounding boogie- woogie piano and bluesy, country- told lyrics helped define the sound of gemstone ’n’ roll on successes like “ Whole Lotta Shakin ’ Goin ’ On ” and “ Great Balls of Fire, ” and whose inflammatory performing style expressed the substance of gemstone rebellion, failed on Friday at his home in DeSoto County, Miss., south of Memphis. He was 87.
His Death Was Blazoned by His Publicist, Zach Farnum. No Cause Was Given, but Mr. Lewis Had Been in Poor Health for Some Time.
Mr. Lewis was 21 in November 1956 when he walked into Sun Studio in Memphis and, presenting himself as a country songster who could play a mean piano, demanded an investigation.
His timing was impeccable. Sun Records had vended Elvis Presley’s contract to RCA Records a time before and poorly demanded a new star to caption a canon that included Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison.
In 2019 he suffered a serious stroke that left him unfit to play the piano. A time latterly, still, he recorded an reader of philosophy songs in Nashville and, during the session, set up that his right hand had begun moving, allowing him to pound the keys.( That reader has yet to be released.)
Before also he’d been recording sporadically, frequently with youngish artists eager to work with one of gemstone ’n’ roll’s founding fathers. On compendiums like “ Last Man Standing ”( 2006), “ Mean Old Man ”( 2010) and “ Rock & Roll Time ”( 2014), he performed with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Kid Rock.
In September 1976, while watching TV at his woman ’s house, Mr. Lewis accidentally shot his bass player, Norman Owens, in the casket with a.357 Magnum handgun after publicizing, “ I ’m going to shoot that Coca- Cola bottle over there or my name ai n’t Jerry Lee Lewis. ”Mr. Owens survived and filed a action.
Two months latterly, Mr. Lewis drove his Lincoln Continental into the frontal gates of Graceland, Presley’s manse in Memphis, just hours after being arrested and jugged on a crapulous- driving charge. A guard latterly told the police thatMr. Lewis, signaling a dynamo, had demanded to see Presley and refused to leave.
Reprise Visits to Hospitals and Recuperation Centers Replaced. Internal Bleeding From a Gash in His Stomach Lining Nearly Killed Him in 1981.
His fourth woman , Jaren Pate, drowned in a friend’s swimming pool in 1982. His fifth woman , Shawn Michelle Stephens, failed after taking an overdose of methadone in 1983.
In 1985, after croakers removed half his stomach to correct a bleeding ulcer, Mr. Lewis sluggishly began to settle down.
His Marriage to Kerrie McCarver Ended in Divorce in 2004.
He’s Survived by His Woman , Judith Coghlan Lewis; his children, Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Phoebe Lewis and Lori Lancaster; his family, Linda Gail Lewis, who’s also a songster and pianist; and numerous grandchildren.
Myra Lewis’s book “ Great Balls of Fire The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis, ” published in 1982, inspired the 1989 film “ Great Balls of Fire!, ” with Dennis Quaid playing Mr. Lewis. The film and book, as well as Nick Tosches’s memoir “ Hellfire The Jerry Lee Lewis Story, ” also published in 1982, contributed to a renewed interest in the songster.( “ Jerry Lee Lewis His Own Story, ” by Rick Bragg, was published in 2014.)
His recordings were repackaged by Rhino Records in “ Jerry Lee Lewis 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits ” and “ The Jerry Lewis Anthology All Killer No Filler!, ” a compendium of 42 of his gemstone and country successes.
The German company Bear Family issued nearly every note he ever recorded for Sun and Smash in the boxed sets “ Classic Jerry Lee Lewis The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings ” and “ Jerry Lee Lewis The Locust Times. ”
Sure Yet Wild
Jerry Lee Lewis was born onS ept. 29, 1935, in Ferriday,La., to Elmo Lewis, a carpenter, and Mamie( Herron) Lewis. When he was a boy, he and two of his relatives, the unborn evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and the unborn country songster Mickey Gilley( who failed this time), liked to sneak into a original cotillion hall, Haney’s Big House, to hear top blues acts perform.
He showed an aptitude for the piano, and his father espoused plutocrat to buy him one. “ The more he rehearsed, the surer the left hand and wilder the right hand came, ”Mr. Tosches wrote in “ Hellfire. ”
At 14, he was invited to sit in with a band performing at a original Ford dealership, which was celebrating the appearance of the 1950 models. He played “ Drinkin ’ Wine Spo- Dee- O- Dee ” — the tune, a megahit for Stick McGhee in 1949, would be a minor pop hit forMr. Lewis in 1973 — and took home nearly$ 15 when someone passed the chapeau.
He soon came a regular at clubs in Natchez, just across the Mississippi River, and on the radio station KWKH in Shreveport, La. His deeply upset mama , a Pentecostal Christian, enrolled him in the Southwestern Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas.
“ I did n’t graduate, ” he told The New York Times in 2006. “ I was kind of quit- uated. I was asked to leave for playing ‘ My God Is Real ’ boogie- woogie style, gemstone ’n’ roll style. I figured that’s the way it demanded to be played. ”
After dealing sewing machines door to door,Mr. Lewis tried his luck in Nashville, without success. “ I flash back it veritably well, ” he told Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins, the authors of “ Sun Records The detail History of the fabulous Record Marker ”( 1980). “ I was turned down by every marker in city. ”
The Sun period was brief but important. After cutting his first record, Mr. Lewis worked as a plant musician for the marker.
With the success of “ Whole Lotta Shakin ’, ”Mr. Lewis’s performance figure rose from$ 50 to$,000 in a matter of months. He was invited on “ American Bandstand ” and appeared in “ Jamboree, ” a 1957 gemstone ’n’ roll film that also featured performances by Frankie Avalon, Fats Domino, Mr. Perkins and others.
Conclusion
In 2022 — 36 times after he was one of the first draftees in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame —Mr. Lewis was instated into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was too ill to attend the form; Mr. Kristofferson accepted his award in his vantage and presented it to him at his home.
His worried son Jerry LeeJr. failed in a auto crash in 1973.
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