Flamboyant showman, latest member of the Million Dollar Quartet, musician and singer Jerry Lee Lewis brings down the curtain after a tumultuous life, at 87
Par Sasha Kidneys
© NOEL VASQUEZ / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP
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To In its early days, rock’n’roll was accused of all evils, of being – after the blues from which it was a derivative – the devil’s music and of propagating debauchery and violence. The leaders were identified and denounced: Elvis, Gene Vincent, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran. If all these young rockers were indeed rambunctious, they were altar boys, nice boys, compared to the wildest and most uncontrollable of them all, Jerry Lee Lewis, who just passed away at the age of 87. year.
Jerry Lee Lewis was born on September 29, 1935 in Louisiana and learned to play the piano at a very young age with his cousin Jimmy Swaggart. As a child, he often wandered off to bars in the black neighborhood of his hometown and listened to blues and rhythm and blues. He thus developed a personal style mixing boogie-woogie, gospel, country music and R&B. of quarter.
Bad reputation
In 1954, he recorded his first demo, and the following year he traveled to Nashville to take part in the famous radio hook organized by the Grand Ole Opry. He already drags behind him a very bad reputation which is hurting him in these very pious and very conservative states. He had married at sixteen the daughter of a pastor whom he abandoned after a few months to marry another young woman. A bigamist, he officially divorced his first wife when the second gave him a son.
After being rejected by all the labels in the region, in 1956 he was signed by Sun, who also had Elvis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins under contract. In December of the same year, the four men find themselves together in the same studio. The Million Dollar Quartet (as they were nicknamed) recorded an album during an impromptu session.
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A piano on fire
Jerry Lee Lewis’ career took off the following year with two titles that became classics: “Whole Lotta Shakin’Goin’On” and “Great Balls of Fire”. He is a breathtaking, flamboyant and provocative showman. A scab too. Furious at having to open for Chuck Berry one evening (he felt that he was the one who should close the show), at the end of his singing tour he set fire to his piano to prevent his rival from coming after him. .
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He could have become a planetary star like Elvis if he hadn’t pushed things a little too far by marrying his cousin who was barely thirteen years old. The scandal was revealed in 1958 by the press while he was on tour in Great Britain and sounded the death knell for the first part of his career. The “Killer”, as he is nicknamed, will slowly rebuild his career by favoring more and more country music, but will continue to roll at full speed on the left lane. Divorces, arrests for driving under the influence, domestic violence, mysterious deaths (two of his wives disappeared in unsolved circumstances), accidents (his youngest son drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, the eldest killed himself eleven years later. late in an automobile accident), illness (in 1981, he was close to death following a perforation of the stomach caused by alcoholism), financial bankruptcies (in 1994, to pay off his tax arrears, he opened his house for visitors) and scandals of all kinds continue to punctuate his life.
The last pioneer of rock’n’roll, Jerry Lee Lewis never left music, recording a gospel album in early 2020. But, after a minor stroke in May 2022, he finally canceled concerts.