https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/jerry-lee-lewis-outrageous-rock-n-roll-star-dies-at-87/

Jerry Lee Lewis, the untamable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy and ego collided on such definitive records as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, died Friday morning at 87.

The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at home in Memphis, Tennessee, representative Zach Farnum said in a release.

Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre’s attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself “The Killer.”

Tender ballads were best left to the old folks. Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his leering tenor and demanding asides, violent tempos and brash glissandi, cocky sneer and crazy blond hair. He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.

“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis.

But in his private life, he raged in ways that might have ended his career today — and nearly did back then.

For a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was canceled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.

“I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”

Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness. Two of his many marriages ended in his wife’s early death. Brown herself divorced him in the early 1970s and would later allege physical and mental cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.

“If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.

Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry eventually forgave him, long after he stopped having hits. He won three Grammys, and recorded with some of the industry’s greatest stars. In 2006, Lewis came out with “Last Man Standing,” featuring Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album “Mean Old Man.”

In “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll,” first published in 1975, he recalled how he convinced disc jockeys to give him a second chance.

“This time I said, ‘Look, man, let’s get together and draw a line on this stuff — a peace treaty you know,’” he explained. Lewis would still play the old hits on stage, but on the radio he would sing country.

Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)”, the roving eye confessions of “She Still Comes Around” and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, “Live at the Star Club, Hamburg,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.

A 1973 performance proved more troublesome: Lewis sang for the Grand Ole Opry and broke two longstanding rules — no swearing and no non-country songs.

“I am a rock and rollin’, country-and-western, rhythm and blues-singin’ motherf—–,” he told the audience.

Lewis married seven times, and was rarely far from trouble or death. His fourth wife, Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, drowned in a swimming pool in 1982 while suing for divorce. His fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, 23 years his junior, died of an apparent drug overdose in 1983. Within a year, Lewis had married Kerrie McCarver, then 21. She filed for divorce in 1986, accusing him of physical abuse and infidelity. He countersued, but both petitions eventually were dropped. They finally divorced in 2005 after several years of separation. The couple had one child, Jerry Lee III.

Another son by a previous marriage, Steve Allen Lewis, 3, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a traffic accident at 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori Leigh, and his survived by his wife Judith.

His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 to his longtime residence near Nesbit, Mississippi — complete with a piano-shaped swimming pool — he set up a 900 phone number fans could call for a recorded message at $2.75 a minute.

The son of one-time bootlegger Elmo Lewis and the cousin of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley, Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. As a boy, he first learned to play guitar, but found the instrument too confining and longed for an instrument that the only the rich people in his town could afford — a piano. His life changed when his father pulled up in his truck one day and presented him a dark-wood, upright set of keyboards.

“My eyes almost fell out of my head,” Lewis recalled in “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” written by Rick Bragg and published in 2014.

>Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)”, the roving eye confessions of “She Still Comes Around” and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, “Live at the Star Club, Hamburg,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.

I haven't heard it, but I assume the sound engineering was better than
when the Beatles played there two years earlier.

David Carson

On Friday, October 28, 2022 at 1:07:26 PM UTC-4, Jason wrote:
> https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/jerry-lee-lewis-outrageous-rock-n-roll-star-dies-at-87/

This means that all eleven performers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, have now died:
Chuck Berry - died 2017
James Brown - died 2006
Ray Charles - died 2004
Sam Cooke - died 1964
Fats Domino - died 2017
Don Everly - died 2021
Phil Everly - died 2014
Buddy Holly - died 1959
Jerry Lee Lewis - died 2022
Little Richard - died 2020
Elvis Presley - died 1977

Interesting roster you've compiled there, Diner; thanks for assembling it.

On a tangential note: anyone know if the 13-year-old (or was it 15?) cousin the late Lewis wed (and I presume soon thereafter divorced or annulled) is still living? [Don't recall her name, and don't have the energy right now to research it.]

Also: so the oft-cited--yet seldom delineated for the public!-- Mickey Gilley/Jerry Lee Lewis/Jimmy Swaggart country-cousins trio is down to one now.

BRYAN STYBL:E/Florida

In article <04946adc-7825-45b0-8246-b61c3757acffn@googlegroups.com>,
<"radioacti...@gmail.com"> wrote:

> Interesting roster you've compiled there, Diner; thanks for assembling it.
>
> On a tangential note: anyone know if the 13-year-old (or was it 15?) cousin
> the late Lewis wed (and I presume soon thereafter divorced or annulled) is
> still living? [Don't recall her name, and don't have the energy right now to
> research it.]

Myra Gale Brown. She was 13 and the daughter of his cousin J.W. Brown,
which I think makes her a first cousin once removed. Jerry Lee was 22
at the time. They were married for 14 years before divorcing.

I think the only time I saw him in a movie - and in a theatre, to boot - was when I saw him in the seldom seen cult classic, "Keep On Rockin' (Toronto Pop)."

It was also the first time I ever heard of Little Richard. (I was a preteen at the time.)

For some reason, though, at YouTube, "Toronto Pop" doesn't work as well as "Toronto Peace Festival." Plus, "1969."

Also, at the IMDb, the title is Little Richard: Keep on Rockin' (1973)

At any rate, here's one review:

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/27/archives/film-keep-on-rockinthe-cast.html

And:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22keep+on+rockin%27%22+toronto+1969

In article <025olh5eghcpp85ahqo51m7kvb59js8g50@4ax.com>, davidc@wa-
wd.com says...
>
> >Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as ?What?s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)?, the roving eye confessions of ?She Still Comes Around? and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, ?She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.? He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, ?Live at the Star Club, Hamburg,? is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert
records.
>
> I haven't heard it, but I assume the sound engineering was better than
> when the Beatles played there two years earlier.
>
> David Carson

Much better. It's on youtube, so judge for yourself - it is indeed one
of the all-time great live shows:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowQCq3Ss89iHv6BMk7a_RcdtCrvVDFNz

--
Dave

On Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 4:09:51 PM UTC-4, Lenona wrote:
> I think the only time I saw him in a movie - and in a theatre, to boot - was when I saw him in the seldom seen cult classic, "Keep On Rockin' (Toronto Pop)."
>
> It was also the first time I ever heard of Little Richard. (I was a preteen at the time.)
>
> For some reason, though, at YouTube, "Toronto Pop" doesn't work as well as "Toronto Peace Festival." Plus, "1969."
>
> Also, at the IMDb, the title is Little Richard: Keep on Rockin' (1973)

Forgot to mention that the movie was the first time I had heard of Lewis, as well.

And I checked in Marshall Crenshaw's 1994 book "Hollywood Rock" (very good, btw). There are three alphabetical movie lists, plus a 9-page "cameo glossary." (There are more than 300 pages before the index.)

But I couldn't find it at first. I finally did some cross-searching of musicians in the index and found it - the title is "Sweet Toronto."

(The easiest thing to do, at the IMDb, is to search on the director D.A. Pennebaker, here, and look at everything from 1969 to 1973):

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0672060/

In Crenshaw's book, though, most of the review is on page 220.

While Crenshaw gave it high ratings, he also wrote "the film is consistently entertaining, if largely unremarkable."

And:

"Jerry Lee shows them all up with a set composed mostly of Elvis tunes. On 'Mystery Train' the Killer plays guitar instead of piano. Hot stuff!"

All the song titles are in the book. Bo Diddley played two songs, Lewis played seven, Chuck Berry played five, Little Richard played seven, John Lennon performed six (he only wrote three of them), and Yoko Ono performed two. (However, given the frequent re-editing, it's possible you won't find the Lennon/Ono songs in the same DVD - if there is one - as the one that includes Little Richard, at least.)

Btw, Myra Williams (the child bride) recently spoke out about her marriage to Lewis:

https://www.yahoo.com/video/jerry-lee-lewis-teenage-bride-003238790.html

She was strangely vague, at the end, about whether she would still have married Lewis if she could live her life again.

It reminds me of how Cynthia Lennon once said that since she'd always wanted a "pipe and slippers" husband, had she known what Lennon would turn out to be as a husband, she would have turned around and walked away - before even dating him, IIRC.

What I mean is, while of course she would never have had Julian had she done that, EVERYONE should have the sense to realize that you can't miss an individual child you never had; you can only be aware of any disasters you've managed to dodge. So when she said that, she wasn't saying she regretted having Julian or anything like that - just that no one should expect marriage to a superstar to turn out well. Had she never met John, she likely would have had a loving family, including children, with someone else.