Jerry Lee Lewis, a Rock ’n’ Roll Original, Dies at 87 - The New York Times

Jerry Lee Lewis, the hard-driving rockabilly creator whose pounding boogie-woogie soft and bluesy, country-influenced vocals helped specify the dependable of stone ’n’ rotation connected hits similar “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” and whose incendiary performing benignant expressed the essence of stone rebellion, died connected Friday astatine his location successful DeSoto County, Miss., southbound of Memphis. He was 87.

His decease was announced by his publicist, Zach Farnum. No origin was given, but Mr. Lewis had been successful mediocre wellness for immoderate time.

Mr. Lewis was 21 successful November 1956 erstwhile helium walked into Sun Studio successful Memphis and, presenting himself arsenic a state vocalist who could play a mean piano, demanded an audition.

His timing was impeccable. Sun Records had sold Elvis Presley’s declaration to RCA Records a twelvemonth earlier and severely needed a caller prima to header a roster that included Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison.

Mr. Lewis much than filled the bill. His archetypal record, a juiced-up rendition of the Ray Price deed “Crazy Arms,” was a determination success. With “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” released successful April 1957, helium gave Sun the breakout deed it was looking for.

Although initially banned by galore vigor stations for being excessively suggestive, “Whole Lotta Shakin’” reached a nationwide assemblage aft Mr. Lewis performed it connected “The Steve Allen Show.” It roseate to No. 3 connected the popular charts and sold immoderate six cardinal copies worldwide, making it 1 of the biggest hits of the aboriginal stone ’n’ rotation era.

Overnight, Mr. Lewis entered into nonstop contention with Presley. As Mr. Lewis saw it, determination was nary contest.

“There’s a quality betwixt a improvement and a stylist,” helium told the record-collector mag Goldmine successful 1981. “I’m a stylist, Elvis was the phenomenon, and don’t you hide it.”

The opus again featured Mr. Lewis’s distinctive barrelhouse soft style, with the near manus insistently beating the keys and the close executing rippling glissandos, portion helium gave a leering swoop to lines similar “Kiss me, babe — mmmm, feels good.” The grounds reached No. 2 connected the popular charts, selling much than 5 cardinal copies successful the United States alone.

His scorching performing benignant suited his material. Mr. Lewis, sometimes called by his puerility nickname the Killer, discovered that audiences loved it erstwhile helium kicked his soft seat speech and attacked the keyboard lasting up. Possessed by “the Devil’s music,” arsenic helium called it, helium writhed and howled, raked the keyboard with his close ft and tossed his wavy blond hairsbreadth until it looked similar a fright wig.

“Nobody had a much originative attack to the euphony oregon a much incendiary attack to performing it,” Peter Guralnick, the writer of the definitive two-volume Presley biography, said successful an interrogation for this obituary. “He had the quality to enactment his stamp connected each benignant of worldly helium recorded.”

Asked by reporters if 13 wasn’t a small young to beryllium married, Mr. Lewis’s woman said: “Oh, no, not astatine all. Age doesn’t substance backmost home. You tin wed astatine 10 if you tin find a husband.”

The revelations caused a ungraded connected some sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Lewis chopped his circuit abbreviated and returned to the United States, wherever helium rapidly discovered that his vocation arsenic a stone prima was over. His signaling of “High School Confidential,” from the movie of the aforesaid name, yet came retired — Sun feared to merchandise it aft the ungraded broke — and reached No. 21. But his consequent records failed miserably.

Sun, which Mr. Lewis would permission successful 1963, was reluctant to beforehand him. Many vigor stations refused to play his music. Concert dates dried up. Mr. Lewis seemed mystified by the response. “I plumb joined the girl, didn’t I?” helium said to 1 reporter.

A New Path

Reduced to performing successful tiny clubs for a fewer 100 dollars a night, Mr. Lewis recovered redemption successful state music. At Smash Records, which signed him successful 1963, a drawstring of failures led producers to suggest that helium instrumentality to his roots and grounds immoderate purely state songs.

It was a earthy fit. Both of his biggest stone ’n’ rotation hits had topped the state charts, and his soaring, resonant voice, successful the vein of Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams, lent itself arsenic to up-tempo honky-tonk numbers and cry-in-your brew laments.

His archetypal state release, “Another Place, Another Time,” reached No. 4 connected the Billboard state illustration successful 1968, and helium scored Top 10 state hits that twelvemonth with “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me),” “She Still Comes Around (to Love What’s Left of Me)” and “To Make Love Sweeter for You.”

His blistery streak continued into the 1970s. He would yet grounds astir 2 twelve Top 10 state singles, ending with “39 and Holding” successful 1981, and astir arsenic galore Top 10 state albums. He adjacent managed to creep onto the popular charts successful 1972 with a signaling of the Kris Kristofferson opus “Me and Bobby McGee” and a screen mentation of the Big Bopper deed “Chantilly Lace.”

Years of dense drinking and cause maltreatment began to instrumentality their toll, however, and his beingness for overmuch of the 1970s and ’80s was a bittersweet catalog of household catastrophes, wellness crises and run-ins with the I.R.S. and the police.

His troubled lad Jerry Lee Jr. died successful a car clang successful 1973.

In September 1976, portion watching tv astatine his wife’s house, Mr. Lewis accidentally changeable his bass player, Norman Owens, successful the thorax with a .357 Magnum handgun aft announcing, “I’m going to sprout that Coca-Cola vessel implicit determination oregon my sanction ain’t Jerry Lee Lewis.” Mr. Owens survived and filed a lawsuit.

Two months later, Mr. Lewis drove his Lincoln Continental into the beforehand gates of Graceland, Presley’s mansion successful Memphis, conscionable hours aft being arrested and jailed connected a drunken-driving charge. A defender aboriginal told the constabulary that Mr. Lewis, waving a pistol, had demanded to spot Presley and refused to leave.

Repeat visits to hospitals and rehabilitation centers ensued. Internal bleeding from a teardrop successful his tummy lining astir killed him successful 1981.

His 4th wife, Jaren Pate, drowned successful a friend’s swimming excavation successful 1982. His 5th wife, Shawn Michelle Stephens, died aft taking an overdose of methadone successful 1983.

In 1985, aft doctors removed fractional his tummy to close a bleeding ulcer, Mr. Lewis dilatory began to settee down.

His matrimony to Kerrie McCarver ended successful divorcement successful 2004. He is survived by his wife, Judith Coghlan Lewis; his children, Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Phoebe Lewis and Lori Lancaster; his sister, Linda Gail Lewis, who is besides a vocalist and pianist; and galore grandchildren.

Myra Lewis’s publication “Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis,” published successful 1982, inspired the 1989 movie “Great Balls of Fire!,” with Dennis Quaid playing Mr. Lewis. The movie and book, arsenic good arsenic Nick Tosches’s biography “Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story,” besides published successful 1982, contributed to a renewed involvement successful the singer. (“Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” by Rick Bragg, was published successful 2014.)

His recordings were repackaged by Rhino Records successful “Jerry Lee Lewis: 18 Original Sun Greatest Hits” and “The Jerry Lewis Anthology: All Killer No Filler!,” a compilation of 42 of his stone and state hits. The German institution Bear Family reissued virtually each enactment helium ever recorded for Sun and Smash successful the boxed sets “Classic Jerry Lee Lewis: The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings” and “Jerry Lee Lewis: The Locust Years.”

Sure Yet Wild

Jerry Lee Lewis was calved connected Sept. 29, 1935, successful Ferriday, La., to Elmo Lewis, a carpenter, and Mamie (Herron) Lewis. When helium was a boy, helium and 2 of his cousins, the aboriginal evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and the aboriginal state vocalist Mickey Gilley (who died this year), liked to sneak into a section creation hall, Haney’s Big House, to perceive apical blues acts perform.

He showed an aptitude for the piano, and his begetter borrowed wealth to bargain him one. “The much helium practiced, the surer the near manus and wilder the close manus became,” Mr. Tosches wrote successful “Hellfire.”

At 14, helium was invited to beryllium successful with a set performing astatine a section Ford dealership, which was celebrating the accomplishment of the 1950 models. He played “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” — the tune, a deed for Sticks McGhee successful 1949, would beryllium a insignificant popular deed for Mr. Lewis successful 1973 — and took location astir $15 erstwhile idiosyncratic passed the hat.

He soon became a regular astatine clubs successful Natchez, conscionable crossed the Mississippi River, and connected the vigor presumption KWKH successful Shreveport, La. His profoundly disquieted mother, a Pentecostal Christian, enrolled him successful the Southwestern Bible Institute successful Waxahachie, Texas.

“I didn’t graduate,” helium told The New York Times successful 2006. “I was benignant of quit-uated. I was asked to permission for playing ‘My God Is Real’ boogie-woogie style, stone ’n’ rotation style. I figured that’s the mode it needed to beryllium played.”

After selling sewing machines doorway to door, Mr. Lewis tried his luck successful Nashville, without success. “I retrieve it precise well,” helium told Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins, the authors of “Sun Records: The Brief History of the Legendary Record Label” (1980). “I was turned down by each statement successful town.”

A hardscrabble beingness connected the roadworthy ensued. “My begetter would load that aged soft onto the backmost of his truck, we’d thrust somewhere, unload it, I’d springiness a show, we’d walk the hat, he’d load it backmost connected again, and we’d spell location and spot what we’d got,” helium said.

In desperation, helium and his begetter sold 33 twelve eggs and, with the proceeds, headed for the studios of Sun Records. Initially helium planned to sing state music, but the shaper Jack Clement urged him to effort stone ’n’ roll. The statement connected his archetypal azygous billed him arsenic “Jerry Lee Lewis With His Pumping Piano.”

The Sun play was little but eventful. After cutting his archetypal record, Mr. Lewis worked arsenic a workplace instrumentalist for the label.

He was successful the workplace connected Dec. 4, 1956, erstwhile Presley dropped by for a affable visit, sat down astatine the soft and began singing rhythm-and-blues songs and hymns with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Mr. Lewis successful an informal league aboriginal released arsenic the medium “Million Dollar Quartet.” The league inspired a fashionable philharmonic of the aforesaid name, by Floyd Mutrux and Mr. Escott, which opened connected Broadway successful 2010, ran for a year, and past played Off Broadway for different year.

With the occurrence of “Whole Lotta Shakin’,” Mr. Lewis’s show interest roseate from $50 to $10,000 successful a substance of months. He was invited connected “American Bandstand” and appeared successful “Jamboree,” a 1957 stone ’n’ rotation movie that besides featured performances by Frankie Avalon, Fats Domino, Mr. Perkins and others.

Later successful his career, contempt his occurrence arsenic a state singer, Mr. Lewis sometimes confessed to hankering aft the aged stone ’n’ rotation days. “You know, if I could conscionable find different similar ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’,’” helium told Mr. Guralnick successful a 1971 interview. “Some records conscionable got that definite something. But I ain’t gonna find another. Just similar I was calved erstwhile into this satellite and I ain’t gonna beryllium calved again.”

In 2019 helium suffered a superior changeable that near him incapable to play the piano. A twelvemonth later, however, helium recorded an medium of gospel songs successful Nashville and, during the session, recovered that his close manus had begun moving, allowing him to lb the keys. (That medium has yet to beryllium released.)

Before past helium had been signaling sporadically, often with younger artists anxious to enactment with 1 of stone ’n’ roll’s founding fathers. On albums similar “Last Man Standing” (2006), “Mean Old Man” (2010) and “Rock & Roll Time” (2014), helium performed with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Page, Neil Young and Kid Rock.

The thought that the top names successful stone should travel to him struck him arsenic perfectly natural. “I’m the lone 1 near who’s worthy a damn,” helium told Goldmine successful 1981. “Everyone other is dormant oregon gone. Only the Killer rocks on.”

In 2022 — 36 years aft helium was 1 of the archetypal inductees successful the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — Mr. Lewis was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was excessively sick to be the ceremony; Mr. Kristofferson accepted his grant successful his stead and presented it to him astatine his home.

In a connection the time his induction was announced, Mr. Lewis said, “To beryllium recognized by state euphony with their highest grant is simply a humbling experience.” He added, “I americium appreciative of each those who person recognized that Jerry Lee Lewis euphony is state euphony and to our almighty God for his never-ending redeeming grace.”