Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis was raised in the same Pentecostal religious tradition and cultural setting as Elvis and was exposed to almost identical musical influences. From there on the two young rebels grew to be as different as milkshake and moonshine. Unlike Presley and other contemporaries, Lewis really was as outrageously extreme as his later image. 

By the time he rapped on Sun's door in the autumn of 1956 he had been expelled from preacher training college for playing hymns boogie-woogie style; he had been twice married, once bigamously; and he had been resident blues 'n' boogie man in brothels and cut-throat dives along the Mississippi waterfront. He was also without the slightest trace of insecurity about the invincibility of his own talent.

The bare facts of the self-styled Killer's breakthrough are few but frenetic. After one southern regional hit, in the late summer of 1957 he smashed to international success with a lascivious rockin' boogie, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, quickly followed by an even wilder affront to conservative morality, Great Balls Of Fire. Also in late 1957 he quietly entered his third marriage - to his 13-year-old second cousin, Myra. Such marriages were perfectly legal and not particularly unusual in Louisiana.

While his next hit, Breathless, was climbing the charts in May 1958, he appeared in London, caught the full force of a kick from the high horse of British morality, ostensibly because of his 'unacceptable' marriage, and was effectively knocked out of the big time for the next 10 years. In 1968 he returned to establishment favor with the first of a string of American country hits. By the mid-Seventies his second wave of success had ebbed to more modest proportions.

At the time of the public outcry that felled his career, Lewis was looking to challenge Presley's supremacy, especially as Elvis had just been called up into the army. But even without Lewis's forced exclusion from the race it is doubtful whether he would have remained top dog for long, for by 1958 Rock & Roll was already being changed into a commercial parody that was alien to his nature. Jerry Lee Lewis had never been one to compromise his own feelings, and therefore his music, for the sake of commercial success. In his long and prolific career there have been occasional attempts by producers to modify his style, and naturally the overall sound of his records has been affected by changing technology. Throughout it all he remained the piano-pumpin' personalizer of country weepers and riotous rockers.

In July 1981 Lewis was rushed into a Memphis hospital for emergency surgery on a stomach ruptured by many years of wild living. His condition was critical, his chances 50:50. Upon recovery and release he bought himself a $40,000 customized Cadillac, a $25,000 Chevrolet Corvette, a good long cigar, and a bottle of his favorite whiskey. "As long as they give me a piano I'll be out there" he proclaimed. "they try to take that away, I'm gonna kick some ass". There speaks the true voice of Rock & Roll . . .