Jerry Lee Lewis Is Still Rocking

[Billbrpt@AOL.COM]

Dear List,

Here is a news item I came across that I found very interesting.  I like many 
kinds of music and can appreciate many different styles and ways of playing 
the piano.  I have long been a fan of Jerry Lee Lewis and have always enjoyed 
his recordings even though the early ones had out of tune pianos.  I'd sure 
love the opportunity to tune for him and to stay and listen to his 
performance.

<<Jerry Lee Lewis Is Still Rocking

.c The Associated Press

 By JEFF SIMONS

TESUQUE, N.M. (AP) - He's been demonized, ostracized and jeered out of a 
country.

He's the pyromeister who once torched his baby grand for a grand finale. A 
rock 'n' roll wrecking machine who trashed pianos a decade before The Who 
turned onstage mayhem into trademark encores. The hell-raiser who racked up a 
half-dozen marriages and a 40-year roller coaster career of hit records, 
scandals, accolades and sordid tales of drugs, booze and guns.

Jerry Lee Lewis is a living legend who keeps on cranking. Elton John has 
called him the ``greatest piano player ever.'' Bruce Springsteen says Lewis 
``doesn't play rock 'n' roll, he is rock 'n' roll.''

``I still like my style of rock 'n' roll, and I still love workin','' said 
Lewis, who has sold more than 25 million records. Fourteen years ago, he 
became one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of 
Fame.

He averages 50 shows a year.

``It's not about money. It never was about money. This is my life,'' he said.

At a recent performance at the Camel Rock Casino, Lewis - backed up by The 
Jerry Lee Lewis All-Stars band - sent the packed house a message: At 64, he 
still has enough drive and adrenaline to deliver a fervent dose of 
Eisenhower-era chart-busters.

On his classics ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'' and ``Great Balls of Fire,'' 
Lewis proved he could still wail like he did back when he dethroned Elvis 
Presley as the prima donna of Sun Records.

He was the maestro of the eighty-eights, cascading across the keyboard, 
thumping down rolling bass lines and hammering out pulsating chord riffs on 
vintage covers ``Lucille'' and ``Roll Over Beethoven.''

``He's one of the keyboard rock 'n' roll legends,'' said Lawrence Scucci of 
Santa Fe, one of the 1,300 fans who turned out for the show.

``I've been a fan of his for years. In a lot of ways, to see him up front as 
he was in the '50s and '60s is unbelievable.''

Lewis, born in Ferriday, La., on Sept. 29, 1935, got his first musical 
influences from swing, R&B, Delta blues, Jimmie Rodgers and Carl McVoye, a 
cousin who popularized the song ``You Are My Sunshine.''

His cousins figured prominently in his career: There was alter ego Jimmy 
Swaggart, a piano prodigy-turned-evangelist who chastised Lewis for taking up 
what was often called the ``devil's music''; Mickey Gilley, who became a 
successful country artist; J.W. Brown, his bass player, who backed up Lewis 
when he first exploded onto the charts; and Myra Gale, Brown's daughter and 
Lewis' third wife, who scuttled his 1958 British tour after three gigs when 
the press leaked her age - she was 13 - and audiences booed him off the stage.

``My daddy's broken a lot of rules and taken a lot of heat over the years,'' 
said Phoebe Lewis, 36, his daughter and manager, who lives with her father in 
Nesbit, Miss.

``But he lives for his music and his fans. He's an institution.''

Leaning back in his chair a few minutes before his performance, Lewis - 
wearing a white polo shirt, black pants and spit-shined cowboy boots - took a 
draw off his pipe and reflected on the early dissenters who slammed his music.

``It's the nature of the people,'' he said. ``Rock 'n' roll came on so 
strong, that after listening to the likes of Perry Como, it scared the socks 
off them.''

Lewis cut ``End of the Road,'' his first track, in November 1956. The 
following year was his golden year. ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'' quickly 
soared into the Top 40 country and R&B charts and hung on for 20 weeks. 
``Great Balls of Fire,'' written by Otis Blackwell, rocketed into the Top 10 
on the pop, country and R&B charts. It became the best-selling record in Sun 
Records' history.

In 1961, Lewis scored his last rock 'n' roll Top 40 hit - a remake of Ray 
Charles' ``What'd I Say.'' After that, he began shifting to country and 
western.

Between 1968 and 1972 - a period when rock 'n' roll was being redefined by 
British and San Francisco-based bands - Lewis chalked up 15 C&W hits. ``To 
Make Love Sweeter for You,'' ``There Must Be More to Love Than This,'' 
``Would You Take Another Chance on Me'' and ``Chantilly Lace'' reached the 
No. 1 spot on the charts.

In 1973, Lewis shifted back to rock 'n' roll and put together ``The 
Session,'' accompanied by Peter Frampton and Alvin Lee. That same year, his 
19-year-old son Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. died in an auto crash.

A few years later, Lewis accidentally shot his bass player, who survived and 
eventually sued. In 1976, he was arrested for brandishing a gun outside 
Presley's Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn. Two years after that, he was 
immersed in a series of lawsuits with Elektra Records.

His fourth wife drowned in a swimming pool in 1982. His fifth wife died at 
his home from a drug overdose a year later. During that same period, Lewis 
came under scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service and grappled with drug 
problems and ulcers.

In 1989, Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder starred in ``Great Balls of Fire,'' a 
film based on Lewis' life and directed by Jim McBride.

``It was supposed to be based on my mother's book,'' said Ms. Lewis, 
referring to Myra Gale Lewis. ``My mother and I were excited about going to 
see it, but when we came out, we felt like we'd been kicked in the stomach.

``I think the director was an idiot. One minute it's a drama, the next a 
comedy, the next a musical. They took an incredible story and turned it into 
a half-assed, Hollywood middle-of-the-road blase, gutless, vanilla movie.''

In 1995, Lewis recorded the rock album ``Young Blood.'' And backed by Bruce 
Springsteen and the E Street Band, he performed ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' 
On'' and ``Great Balls of Fire'' at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 
Cleveland.

For his show at the Camel Rock Casino, Lewis put together a crowd-pleasing 
blend of ballads, country, rock and pop, including the standards ``Georgia,'' 
``Somewhere Over the Rainbow'' and ``She Even Woke Me up to Say Goodbye'' and 
hits by Hank Williams and Chuck Berry.

``If he isn't the essence of rock 'n' roll, who is?'' asked Greg Johnston, 
who was in the audience for the Camel Rock show.

The answer might be Elvis Presley. But that doesn't seem to bother Lewis.

``I'd have walked 300 miles to see Elvis perform,'' Lewis said.

``But you know what? When I put my first record out, he came to see me.''

On the Net:

The Web site for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://www.rockhall.com

The Jerry Lee Lewis Web site: http://www.jerryleelewis.net/discography.htm>>