Jerry Lee Lewis

September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022

ROCK’N’ROLL INNOVATOR Jerry Lee Lewis died on October 28. The news was announced by his publicist following incorrect reports of his death earlier the same week. The singer-songwriter and pianist, who was known for hits including Great Balls Of Fire and Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On, was 87 years old.

Jerry Lee Lewis was perhaps rock’s first ever anti-hero. Before the likes of Sid Vicious or Axl Rose, he had been rock’n’roll’s premier bad boy. Jerry Lee wasn’t the first rocker to shock polite society, but he was the first to unconsciously push its acceptance of the new music to its limits. In his wake, countless others would attempt to pull the same trick. Few would have anything like the same impact.

Like many of rock’n’roll’s original instigators, at the heart of the Lewis story was a lifelong struggle between religion and rock’n’roll. Born in Ferriday, Louisiana into a community in which Christian belief coloured and shaped everyday life, Lewis considered becoming a preacher. Even after turning professional, he was tempted to devote his life to God.

Most notably there was the infamous Great Balls Of Fire session, when Lewis decided halfway through recording that the song was the work of the devil – it took all of producer Sam Phillips’s persuasion to cajole him into completing it.

“The conflict inside Jerry Lee was not a thing of books and movie scripts,” noted his biographer Rick Bragg, “but a real wounding thing.”

Many obituaries have focused on his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin Myra Gail, its uncovering by the British press, and the tsunami of scandal that engulfed him. Up till then, Lewis had been the brightest new rock sensation, the latest (and final) star to emerge from Sun Records stable. Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Goin’ On had reached No.3 in the

Billboard chart, Great Balls Of Fire had been a UK No.1 (one of the few rock records to achieve this feat in the 1950s).

With Elvis set to enter the army, the throne was there for the taking. Then came that British tour, the fall-out, and a number of mediocre records that failed to capture the public imagination in the same way. “They scalped him,” was Sam Phillips’s verdict on the scandal. “So many people wanted to… ‘do in’ rock’n’roll and this was just what they were looking for.”

Indeed, when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and others died the following year, it seemed that the entertainment establishment and the forces of conservatism might have won, and that rock’n’roll itself could be over.

It wasn’t, of course. Lewis’s own career recovered, although it was never quite the same when he re-emerged after an obligatory stint in the sin bin. He tried different formulae, switched styles, even discarding his piano for a harpsichord on the brilliantly titled 1965 single Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu. Eventually he managed to successfully reinvent himself as a respectable country performer, and as the 60s shaded into the 70s, he chalked up a number of US hits in this style.

Every so often, though, the hellraiser of old poked his head above the parapet to remind fans what the fuss had been about in the first place. Most notably there was the time when he performed at the Grand Ol’ Opry in January 1973. Lewis overran his allotted time, swore and broke the strict ‘no rock’ rule by playing Whole Lotta Shakin’ and Chantilly Lace (with his foot, no less.) Needless to say, the Nashville establishment was not impressed.

Around this time, his drug intake and out-ofcontrol behaviour began to increase. Lewis had been a consumer of amphetamines since the late 50s, but as the 70s progressed, his life unravelled. He accidentally shot his bassist in 1977, the drug and driving offences piled up, and his financial situation deteriorated: in 1979 the US authorities seized most of his property and possessions.

Eventually he managed to straighten out his affairs, and benefited from the revival of interest in his music engendered by the 1989 biopic Great Balls Of Fire, for which he recorded the soundtrack. However, unlike Sun labelmate Johnny Cash, Lewis was never adopted as an icon by a new generation.

Lewis’s arrogance seemed to allow him to override the sort of misfortunes that would have sunk lesser men – and indeed did for many of his contemporaries. And it must have been a source of not-inconsiderable satisfaction to him knowing that of all rock’s great pioneers, its wildest, most self-destructive son managed to nearly outlive them all.