the sparse crowd, his lips snarled like his curly blond hair. He is angry at the disappointing tumout. It is 1963, and Jerry Lee Lewis is up shit creek. For almost six

years, he’s been on the road nonstop, mOStly in the South, Playing one-nighters, trying to recoup some momentum in a Career that skidded to a dead stop in 1958, after it became known he married his 14-year-Old cousin. Incest, they said; and Jerry Lee has been fighting a losing battle against high-placed hypocrites ever since. The crowd is restless. To the majority, Jerry Lee Lewis is at best a memory, at WOrSt a WaShed up has-been. Boredom, nOt interest, has driven them to gawk at this once-uPOn-a-time rock ’n’ro11 star.

Lewis prowIs over to his piano from stage right, Where he has been silently counting empty seats. He pu11s out a gigantic COmb from his hip pocket, and, in a trademark gesture, runS the COmb through his hair. He swivels a curious half-Wiggle of Vanity wounded.

The crowd boos.くくMusic!’’ye11s one.くくQueer!’’yells another.

Jerry Lee spins around and glares.くくShaaaaaaddup ya

muuthers,’’he be11ows. Silence. く●This is the kille名baby, and ”00body cuts the Killer. No- 圏 ・、↑ bo匂′. ’’ He pauses, and tums back to the piano. And then Jerry Lee

Lewis lights into one of the nastiest versions of ’くGreat Balls of

Fire’’to taunt human ears. For the past 20 years, Jerry Lee Lewis has been performing his own brand of rock, COuntry and pop anyplace, anytime and anywhere he gets the money and the opportunity曲

娃型y three Toロコ±聾l∩P hitsT臆alし血血Lg_音吐e Fi宜ies」riL 畔車型⊆ hel星空固唾亜i曲 POpul退団ine-a-dozen Presley imitators, Lewis emer幾重_a giant, an entertainer gifted with intuitive flair, musical brash- espite daunting obsta-

Cles, his ego has let him persevere-and he’s not about to let anyone forget it.

The extemals of Lewis’s career are the stuff of folk legend. Bom in Ferriday, Louisiana, near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1935, Lewis performed music professionally from the age of 15. He く‾ ‾--_ 諾蓑叢叢葦繋警 COntraCt, Lewis headed for Memphis to audition for Sam Phiト 1ips at Sun Records. Upon arriving, he found Phillips unavailable, SO he comered

Sam’s assistant Jack Clement instead. According to Clement,

Mr. Lewis, in the manner of a front-POrCh Jerry Lee boasted that “he could play piano like Chet grandee, takes his ease. Atkins’’葛a Claim that intrigued Clement (not least, PreSum-

67 ably, because Atkins played guitar, nOt Piano). Clement re-

called cutting four country tunes that day’although Lewis himself remembers a marathon audition covering "everything

from Muddy Waters to (Silent Night.’” Whatever the tapes contained, Sam Phillips was duly im-

pressed・ Clement had already dispatched Lewis with the stan- dard instructions of the Presley era-くくGo learn some rock ’n’

ro11・・-and three weeks later, Jerry Lee was back, for a session

that yielded a striding treatment of Ray Price’s recent country smash,.’曲星空喧嘩 dent the national charts. visit to the studio changed a11 that. At the tail

end of the session during which Lewis had cutくくIt’11 Be Me’’as a

sequel toく'Crazy Ams,,, Clement told Jerry to play anything he wanted. With the tapes ro11ing, Jerry Lee and his combo

blithely lit into a little ditty calledくくWhole Lot of Shakin’”-and

on one take, Lewis and Clement had their followup・くくWhole Lot

of Shakin, Going On,・ went on to sell a million copies; Lewis・ catapulted into prominence by television and radio, became an intemational celebrity. くくWhole Lot of Shakin, ” is pure Jerry Lee Lewis from its first

pounding chords. The song is delivered over an incessant planO backbeat; Jerry Lee, his voice t of noncha- 車捜 1oits the hints 1ewdness in the lyrics to the hilt. The public Ioved it. Suddenly Jerry

kid from Ferriday, Louisiana, WaS Crisscrossing the U.S・ On

package tours and appearing on Dick Clark,s Ameγicm Band- siand, becoming, SOme Said, the successor to EIvis himself・ くくWhole Lot of Shakin, ” went to Number One on both the

country-WeStem and rhythm and blues charts・ and lingered for

29 weeks on the pop charts, CreSting in June of 1957・ Subse-

quent hits, SuCh as ・・Great Ba11s of Fire’,,くくBreathless’’and く・High SchooI Confidential,,, followed effortlessly・

But in mid-1958, Jerry Lee decided to marry Myra Brown・ a sweet young girl who also happened to be his third cousin (it was his third marriage). Industry elders were aghast; nO amount of payola, it seemed, COuld right a taboo once wronged.

Ovemight, Jerry Lee Lewis’s career dried up. Without access to

the big tours, the TV shows, the major radio stations・ Jerry Lee Lewis became just another entertainer condemned to one-

nighters in undreamt-Of locales・ There may seem little reason to distinguish Jerry Lee Lewis from a thousand other two-Shot hitmakers. But Lewis was dif-

・ ferent. A natural in an industry釧ed with calculating mimics・ 一 速 his creativity and consequent impact spi11ed far beyond the few 響 雷 hits that reached the general public. 雲 考 え 葦 琶 提 要 commanding T Kong with curly locks, aSSaulting culture by 、 Sou4 a Sixties musical version of - own white As he appeared in the heyday of `tW虹= of a Southem 担S-if臆垣旦皿長音蛙一蛙 Shakin,." 4幼d 。吊he bo寂om, SOme grごて Demonstrating piano technique. 車軸皿工祉・

68 Hauteur incamate, Jerry Lee was a talented punk who knew he was talented, and his flamboyant antics conveyed a class resentment that any self-aVOWed outsider could grasp lmmedi. ately. It was a11 a show, Of course. Carl Perkins has claimed that Jerry Lee, On his first tour with Perkins and Johnny Cash after .くCrazy Arms,, had been released, had trouble with shyness・

くくJohn and I told him,’’recalls Perkins,く‥Turn around so they can see you; make a fuss., So the next night he carried on・ StOOd up, kicked the stool back, and a new Jerry Lee was bom.’’

(And, aS legend has it, he did once, tOO. During his heyday in the late Fifties, Lewis used to demand that he cIose any pack- age tour he appeared on. As writer John Grissim tells the story, くくOne ekception came during a concert tour with Chuck Berry・

emceed by Alan Freed. Both Berry and Lewis had million-Seller hits on the charts at the time and one night Freed flat-Out insisted that Jerry Lee perfom first. After a furious argument, Lewis obeyed. The story has it that he blew nonstop rock for a

bruta1 30 minutes and, during the final.(Whole Lot of Shakin’,’’ poured lighter fluid over the piano and threw a match to it. As he stomped off the stage he hollered to the stage crew: ’I’d like

to see any son of a bitch follow that!’”) 義蒜箋蓋蓋璧蓋警 護警護諾護憲蓄 had only hinted at. A white man with a black soul? Onstage Lewis, unlike Presley, didn,t mess much with ballads and

hymns・ As he admitted in an argument with Sam Phi11ips early

in his career, Lewis saw himself as playing the devil’s music-

and a true Christian doesn,t mix God’s music with the devil’s・ Presley,s early performances had in any case been fastid-

iously rehearsed, eaCh inflection properly placed・ Jerry Lee by contrast always sang with an unquenchable spontaneity, aS though he were tappmg SOme PrlmOrdial wellsprmg Of energy: there are clearly perceptible differences of nuance and phras-

ing even between two takes of 'くGreat Balls of Fire’’cut the same day. H率臆せ喰rS鎚a.臆Sim出也jsjEg2r鎧S皿h止en± On 唖旦旦垣um正ria] , an壷ven in i畦rl)retations of son旦S- s曲一真土錬p手車mpr」一・ TakeくくLittle Queenie.,, Originally a sluggish sock hop send- up by Chuck Berry, the song was later revived in a grinding version by the Rolling Stones (on Get彬γ yZz-yZz七Out生In the Stones, recording, Mick Jagger minces his words carefu11y

during the song,s spoken interlude:くくNow if she’11 dance, We

can make it-COme On, Queenie: 1et’s shake it.’’But a lumbering

69 tempo and the all-tOOfamiliar guile in his voice give the game

Jerry Lee doesn,t think twice. With utter self-abandon・ he

sails through the choruses in a charging uptempO・ and then matter-Of-factly executes the spoken bit, Which any fool, Jerry

Lee seems tO imply, Can See is a come-On’Pure and simple.

In themselves,くくoff{OIor・・ sentiments do not a great rOCk ’n’ - roll record make, ・

- is rather the sin seems destined - alvation , a battle in which is also in - win. But that is not all: there a natural - eans and

-

- he backbone of Lewis・s sound is his piano - playing, invariably some elementary boogie - have always been

- exhilarat- flash, PunCtuated by POintless - of a Fats glissando 書 or the baroque intricacies of a boogie master like Pete く . . ヽ 了 ●_ 二_ 〈,(.《事′、、へ+ 十′ヽ - _ - Johnson (the great Kansas City jazz

- out of the most outrageOuS 薯謹霊諾豊こ against prominent’force- ful bass lines with the left hand (on some of his early record一 輩譲葉警馨 thing more than licentious maniac. His voice is tempered・ POl-

ished, With a rounded fullness that hovers・ SurrOunding notes

with a barely frenetic halo before engulfing them・ His carefully controlled vibrato conveyS tenSion as well as release: his into-

nation suggests labor, aS if he were holding back a scream・ But _上 _〈,(▼章 ●_,へ.ヽ〇十`ゝ書-17 one of easy mastery paradoxically the final impresslOn lS effortlessly commands a

inoods that other performers (like Jagger) strain for. 「孟春n_Peri。d band, featuring Roland James on guitar, rein‾

forces the impression of natural mastery. In their own way・

Lewis・s early Sun recordings even swing, nOt in the mellow

way that Fats Domino swings・ but rather in the clipped・ urgent

way that Lewis・s own planO SWings・

The Sun production enhances this overall texture・ With a

prominent echo smoothing over any rOugh edges・ Although the early records rarely add saxes or an Organ and never use strings

or a chorus, Sam Phillips・s engineering coaxes a fu11ness out of Lewis,s small band; eaCh of the instruments-uSually electric guitar, bass and drums accompanying Jerry Lee,s piano and singing-aSSumeS a mySterious resonanCe Of its own. Just as

with Leonard Chess,s production of Little Walter’the judicious use of echo adds depth and a sheen without sacrificing sponta-

neity or feeling・

70