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 who sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, died on Friday at 87.
The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard, Lewis died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, his representative Zach Farnum said.
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 a one-man stampede who made fans scream and 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.
It is with great sadness we’ve learned about the passing of Jerry Lee Lewis, who was just inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this month. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones during this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/Kzeb7XUR7d
— CMA Country Music (@CountryMusic) October 28, 2022
For a brief time in 1958, he was a contender to replace Elvis as rock’s prime hitmaker after Presley was drafted into the US 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, BB King, and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album Mean Old Man.
