The Final Wild Son: Jerry Lee Lewis 1935-2022

 

"Even by the exaggerated standards of rock 'n' roll, Jerry Lee Lewis was a man who lived dangerously and left chaos in his wake, and in ways that were not always funny. His nickname since his teens was "Killer," and it implied an aggression that seemed to come to him naturally. In 1958, Jerry Lee's career took a nosedive when, after a handful of hits like "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," it was discovered his wife was only thirteen years old; adding insult to injury, the former Myra Gale Brown was his third bride, and Lewis hadn't finished divorcing the second when he and Myra exchanged vows. His appetite for liquor and pills was the stuff of legend, and he had little patience for members of his band or crew who didn't want to raise Hell with him. In September 1976, Lewis was playing with his gun when he shot his bass player, Norman Owens, twice in the chest while aiming at a Coke bottle. Two months later, Jerry Lee was arrested outside Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee when he drunkenly drove into the gate, staggered from the car with a pistol in his hand, and demanded to see Elvis Presley immediately. He nearly died in 1981 from a severe stomach condition brought on by years of alcohol and drug abuse. In 1983, his fifth wife, Shawn Michelle Lewis, died under mysterious circumstances just 77 days after they were wed; a 1984 investigative piece in Rolling Stone stopped short of saying she died as the result of foul play, while giving readers every reason to suppose it. And there were countless stories of Jerry Lee missing gigs or blowing recording sessions while on a bender, heckling his own audience, or appearing on stage, playing a dismissive twenty minutes, and then walking off as the promoters were left to placate an angry crowd. More than once, Jerry Lee would proudly state the obvious: "I'm a mean son of a bitch.

So why did anyone bother to pay attention to this man who, by all accounts, was as poor a role model as rock 'n' roll has offered us? Simple – the man was a genius. There were very few figures in the first era of rock 'n' roll (or ever) whose music was more powerful and engrossing than that of Jerry Lee Lewis. To hear Lewis in his prime was to hear a man push barrelhouse piano to the point of glorious madness, performing with a mania that was held in check only by the supreme confidence of the man at the keyboard. "

more in the obit by Mark Deming
 

The Final Wild Son: Jerry Lee Lewis 1935-2022: