Now that he’s gone, I don’t know what to say about Jerry Lee Lewis (aka “the Killer”) that hasn’t been said. He was a great, thundering rock ‘n’ roll legend if there ever was one…a madman in his youth, and a truly magnificent performer every time he sat down to play piano. It’s remarkable that a guy who drank and caroused and burned the candle at both ends in the ’50s and ’60s lasted as long as he did…87 years.
I saw Lewis perform a set at a smallish venue in Cannes in ’92 (he was 57 at the time) and man, those fast hands and fingers were so beautiful to watch. In my book Lewis was a better, more flamboyant ’50s rocker than Elvis. Boundless energy, awesome boogie chords, a great singing voice, madness and excess, “Great Balls of Fire”…kick it all night long.
To speak admiringly of Jerry Lee Lewis today, of course, is to risk career damage because was he was said to be a notorious brute in his alcohol cups and hardly a feminist, and because he had a thing for jailbait girls back in the ’50s (as did Elvis and a few others). On the other hand there was “Whole lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, “Great Balls of Fire”, “Breathless” and that long blond curly hair hanging from his head and bouncing along as he pounded those keys.
I don’t know if A24 will ever release Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, the T. Bone Burnett-Ethan Coen documentary, but they should get the lead out and release it this year. My impression (which I forgot to post for some reason) was that it’s loads of fun to watch and listen to, but it’s almost too friendly. It barely gets into the crazy stuff, but it does include a spit-take clip in which Lewis is interviewed about his third wife, Myra Gale Brown, his first cousin who was 13 years old when they married. Lewis confesses that she was actually 12 when they first hooked up but he and Brown waited until she was 13 to tie the knot. (Or something close to that.)
Are you going to tell me that Jean Luc Godard‘s Breathless (’60) wasn’t inspired by Lewis’s hit 1958 single? Of course it was. It had to have been.
Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra are in heaven and watching this colorized clip on a 77-inch Sony 4K HDR OLED.
Elvis: I obviously didn’t know when we sang this in ’60, but I only had another 17 years left.
Frank: Yeah, I know…sorry, chief.
Elvis: How long did you last?
Frank: I died in ’98, age 82.
Elvis: Shit, I was only 42.
Frank: Quality, not quantity.
Elvis: I had the quality until I went to see Nixon in the White House. That’s when it all turned sour.
Frank: You liked Nixon?
Elvis: He was against drug use, and I had to support him for that.
Frank: Isn’t that how you died?
Elvis: Yeah. (beat) If I’d played my cards differently I could’ve lasted as long as Jerry Lee Lewis.
Frank: When did he die?
Elvis: He’s still alive! 84 years old, and he was a crazy man in the ’50s.
Frank: Genes.