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Friday, October 28, 2022

JERRY LEE LEWIS,
1935-2022

Jerry Lee Lewis, the fiery pianist who was the last living early rock 'n' roll pioneer, died Friday at his home in DeSoto County, Miss., south of Memphis. One of the first artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he was 87.

According to his publicist, he suffered the last years of his life from various illnesses and injuries that, his physicians had often said, should have taken him decades ago.

The hard-living rocker best known for “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” emerged in the 1950s alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Fats Domino and Buddy Holly.

Like many of them, he was a Southerner raised on gospel, country and the blues who fused those styles to create something wholly new and vibrant. More than many of his peers, Lewis added an element of danger with his venomous onstage personality; long before he ran into trouble with the law for his misuse of firearms, he was dubbed The Killer.

Lewis started at Memphis' Sun Records, as did Presley and Cash, arriving at Sam Phillips' studio just months after The King had moved to RCA. He had an immediate regional hit with his first release, a 1956 cover of Ray Price's “Crazy Arms.” The following year, “Shakin'" went to #3 in the late spring and “Great Balls of Fire” soared to #2 in the fall; follow-ups “Breathless” and “High School Confidential” went Top 30.

Lewis' career came crashing down, however, after it was revealed that the then-22-year-old had married his 13-year-old cousin. His subsequent releases stalled near the bottom of the pop and country charts as he spent his days touring the U.S. and Europe playing any hall he could. The album Live at the Star Club, recorded in 1964 in Hamburg, Germany, revealed just how extraordinary he could be on a good night.

Having been dropped by Sun in 1963, Lewis moved to Smash, where chart success continued to elude him.

Things changed, though, after a move to Nashville in 1968: Lewis’ “Another Place, Another Time” went to #4 on the country chart, the first of 11 consecutive Top 10 country singles over the succeeding three years. The Killer would score 38 Top 40 country singles between 1968 and 1981, and 17 of his 1970s albums for Mercury went Top 40 country.

His output slowed in the '80s and '90s as decades of alcohol and drug abuse turned his life into a series of battles—with the police, the IRS, family members and his health. He returned with a trio of star-studded duet sets: 2006’s Last Man Standing, 2010's Mean Old Man and 2014’s Rock & Roll Time. His final album was a gospel record with his cousin, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who'd preached against Lewis' music when they were younger.

He received his lone Grammy Award, in the spoken-word category, for the 1986 album Class of '55. The Recording Academy gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Lewis was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s first class, in 1986; this past week, he was finally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Photo: Sean Gowdy

TAGS: Jerry Lee Lewis | obit
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