Jerry Lee Lewis

By Erika Cox

Born in Ferriday, Louisiana in 1935, Lewis played music since the age of fifteen. He played country swing (or rockabilly, rural blues, piano boogie and jump blues, better known as New Orleans style R&B music. In 1956, he got a recording contract at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records, the same place Elvis Presley got his start and found superstardom, so he and others at Sun Records felt Lewis could follow Elvis’s footsteps. At one of the recording sessions, Phillips’ assistant, Jack Clement, told Lewis to play anything he wanted and with that his most popular hit “A whole lot of Shakin” was born.

The record went on to sell a million copies and Lewis became an instant success and celebrity status. From there Lewis went on to have a number of popular hits, he performed on numerous Television and Radio shows including the American Bandstand, and completed a number of tours and other appearances. Lewis’s style was more rockabilly and this allowed his songs to make it big on the pop charts as well as the country western charts.

Lewis style was similar to Little Richards. He played the piano with much of the same energy and was also very flamboyant. However, his style seemed more sexually explicit (in those days) than Little Richard. It often seemed as if he was just going to explode during his many performances he gave it all he had and because of that he was a consummate performer. Also, similar to Little Richard he was often struggling with conflicting beliefs over his religion and worldly music.

Lewis saw himself playing the devil’s music and to him a true Christian didn’t mix the devil’s music with God’s music but what made Lewis a great artist is how he displayed the tension between worldly sin and salvation, which in his case sin seemed to win. Again, like Little Richard, Lewis through his music, and in particular his piano playing, seemed to show the highest level of expression and emotion adding more flair to rock and roll.

His showmanship, talent for self-promotion, singing style, along with his undisciplined, uncontrollable, unpredictable and outlandish piano playing catapulted him into stardom; the public loved his style and because of it he gained popularity.

Some said he was the successor to Elvis Presley but in mid-1958 Lewis made a horrendous mistake by marrying his 14-year old second cousin and overnight Lewis went from the top to the bottom, his career was over. He was forced to play one-nighters in out of the way, undesirable places he eventually made a comeback playing mostly country western music but also rock and roll. Since then he has had some troubles, health problems due to heavy drinking and drug abuse and financial woes involving the IRS. These problems have caused him to fade out of the public view but not the public memory.

Like many of the other rock and roll artists that were part of the historic and captivating beginnings of rock and roll that he helped to blast into the mainstream and into musical history, Lewis bounced back despite his health problems and finance shambles. The movie “Great Balls of Fire” in 1989 was a contribute to him and has kept his legend alive - showcasing Lewis’s profound career, adding to his illustrative career and cementing his place among the greatest Rock and Roll artists ever.

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