Jerry Lee Lewis, Rock Pioneer and ‘Great Balls of Fire’ Singer, Dies at 87 - Variety

Singer-pianist Jerry Lee Lewis, the hell-raising, larger-than-life stone ‘n’ rotation pioneer and latter-day state star, has died, according to a rep, Zach Farnum. He was 87.

His decease had erroneously been reported by immoderate outlets connected Wednesday.

“Judith, his seventh wife, was by his broadside erstwhile helium passed distant astatine his location successful Desoto County, Mississippi, southbound of Memphis,” Farnum’s connection said. “He told her, successful his last days, that helium welcomed the hereafter, and that helium was not afraid.”

Lewis — an inaugural inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame successful 1986, a 2005 recipient of a Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and, astatine the property of 86, a 2022 inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame — was a powerhouse keyboardist, mercurial vocalist and rampaging, unpredictable showman who could maestro virtually immoderate song, beryllium it stone ‘n’ roll, country, R&B, gospel oregon pop.

Lewis yet transcended category. With emblematic arrogance, helium would often state that determination were lone 4 existent stylists successful American music: Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis.

The precocious writer Nick Tosches, Lewis’ large Boswell, captured immoderate of his titanic dimensions successful his publication “Country,” published successful 1977 during his state resurgence: “Believe it: Jerry Lee Lewis is simply a carnal of mythic essence….He was — and successful a mode inactive is — the bosom of redneck stone ’n’ roll, and 1 of the top state singers who ever lived.

“He is the past American chaotic man.”

In 1958, astatine the property of 21, aft helium attained nationalist occurrence with his pounding rockabilly singles “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” his vocation deed the partition with the scandalous revelation of his matrimony to his 13-year-old cousin. It took him a decennary to regain his commercialized footing with a bid of almighty honky-tonk ballads.

Known universally by the self-established sobriquet “the Killer,” Lewis was notorious for his drinking, drugging, womanizing and pistol-waving pugnacity. The opening epigraph successful Tosches’ classical 1982 biography “Hellfire” is simply a punctuation from the musician: “I’m draggin’ the assemblage to hellhole with me.”

Yet, for each his well-documented excesses and dark, lurid history, listeners returned to clasp him implicit the people of 7 decades.

Despite sustaining a hedonistic gait that would termination lesser men, helium outlived each his ‘50s contemporaries, including Elvis Presley, whom helium followed to fame astatine Memphis’ Sun Records successful 1957.

He was calved Sept. 29, 1935, successful Ferriday, La. (hence his aboriginal nonrecreational nickname, “the Ferriday Fireball”), and began playing soft astatine the property of nine. As a boy, helium hung retired astatine Haney’s Big House, a section honky tonk, with his cousins, evangelist-to-be Jimmy Lee Swaggart and aboriginal state vocalist and nine proprietor Mickey Gilley. His main keyboard influences were state boogie stylist Moon Mullican, Nashville barrelhouse pianist Del Wood and San Diego-bred boogie-woogie subordinate Merrill Moore.

In 1952, during a travel to New Orleans, 16-year-old Lewis chopped his archetypal demos — a Lefty Frizzell screen and an archetypal off-the-cuff boogie instrumental — astatine Cosimo Matassa’s storied J&M Studio connected Rampart Street. By his precocious teens, helium was moving astatine the Blue Cat Night Club successful Natchez, MS, and fronting a 20-minute play vigor amusement there. A horrendous student, helium dropped retired of precocious school; his frustrated parent enrolled him successful an Assembly of God Bible schoolhouse successful Texas, from which helium was swiftly expelled for applying boogie-woogie to the hymnal.

He joined doubly successful his teens, and fathered a lad by his 2nd wife: Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr., who would drum down his begetter earlier helium was killed successful a single-car mishap successful 1973.

Summarily rejected by Slim Whitman erstwhile helium applied for a touring portion of Shreveport’s Louisiana Hayride, Lewis drove to Memphis successful aboriginal 1956 to audition astatine Sun Records. The statement had precocious sold Presley, its prima act, to RCA Records for $35,000, and had go a magnet for each aspiring hillbilly vocalist successful the South.

Lewis impressed Jack Clement, Sun’s technologist and second-in-command to proprietor Sam Phillips, sufficiently capable to unafraid an accidental to grounds for the label. He chopped a mates of singles — his debut merchandise was a screen of Ray Price’s state deed “Crazy Arms” — and contributed workplace enactment to different Sun acts.

On Dec. 4, 1956, helium was astatine Sun’s Union Avenue installation erstwhile Presley returned; an impromptu day with Sun’s then-current prima Carl Perkins and Lewis (but minus statement mate Johnny Cash, who dropped by for a photograph accidental only) aboriginal gained fame arsenic the “Million Dollar Quartet” session.

Lewis did not person to hold agelong for his ain fame to arrive. In March 1957, Sun issued “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” his mentation of a opus by honky-tonk singer-pianist Roy Hall that had been covered by R&B shouter Big Maybelle. Billed to “Jerry Lee Lewis and His Pumping Piano,” the throbbing, boogie-woogie-inflected azygous scored connected 3 charts – state (No. 1), R&B (No. 1) and popular (No. 3).

An effort to chopped a follow-up fig penned by Otis Blackwell that October sparked a furious statement betwixt Lewis and Phillips astir the quality of misdeed that was recorded and aboriginal often bootlegged. The pianist yet acquiesced and recorded “Great Balls of Fire,” which climbed to No. 3 connected the popular and R&B charts and reached No. 1 connected the state chart.

Lewis captured nationalist attraction with a frenzied show connected “The Steve Allen Show” and caught hits successful aboriginal 1958 with “Breathless” and “High School Confidential”; helium appeared connected surface successful the second song’s namesake exploitation picture, banging retired the tune connected the backmost of a flatbed truck.

He looked unstoppable, but Lewis’ rotation ended abruptly aft connection surfaced during a May 1958 British circuit that helium had joined Myra Gale Brown, the 13-year-old girl of his bassist J.W. Brown and his archetypal relative erstwhile removed. The validity of his 2nd divorcement was besides called into question. Lewis’ maladroit interviews with scandal-loving Fleet Street journalists did not quell the nationalist tempest. He was pilloried by the property overseas, and past astatine home.

An unfastened missive from Lewis that ran arsenic an advertisement successful Billboard that June began, “I person successful caller weeks been the halfway of a fantastic magnitude of publicity, of which nary has been good….I anticipation that if I americium washed up arsenic an entertainer it won’t beryllium due to the fact that of this atrocious publicity.”

Lewis saw his records expire from deficiency of airplay, and abruptly recovered himself banished to the seediest clubs successful America. Sun adjacent attempted to sneak Lewis’ instrumental “In the Mood” by the nationalist nether the pseudonym “The Hawk,” but the ploy fooled nary one. To astir grounds buyers, helium was poison.

Lewis remained with Sun until 1963, the twelvemonth aft his lad Steve Allen Lewis drowned successful the household pool. That year, helium was signed to Mercury Records. His rockabilly-styled singles for the Smash subsidiary recovered small favor.

His champion records of the play were unrecorded shots, the finest of which was a manic 1964 acceptable (originally lone issued overseas) backed by England’s Nashville Teens and recorded earlier an amped-up, chanting assemblage astatine Hamburg’s raucous Star-Club, the notorious Reeperbahn venue that had hosted the Beatles successful their crockery days.

In “Lost and Found,” his 2009 publication astir the album, Joe Bonomo called it “one of the astir honorable and shockingly rocking albums ever made, by a antheral who galore successful his ain homeland considered a stained and wicked has-been during a brutal transition successful his vocation wherever helium had to excavation heavy to find what moved him.”

After 5 fruitless years astatine Mercury, Lewis yet struck wage ungraded erstwhile shaper Jerry Kennedy began signaling the renegade rocker successful a axenic honky-tonk format. Starting with “Another Place Another Time,” No. 4 successful 1968, Lewis racked up a drawstring of 13 top-five state singles implicit a three-year period. Four of them – “To Make Love Sweeter For You,” “There Must Be More to Love Than This,” “Would You Take Another Chance On Me” and a remake of the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” – topped the chart. Over the people of his career, helium placed 63 singles connected the U.S. state chart.

In the 1995 oral biography “Killer,” written with Charles White, Lewis said of his stylistic expansiveness, “I had the assemblage kinda mixed up for a while. They knew I was a stone ’n’ rotation vocalist truthful they didn’t cognize what to marque of each this state stuff. On circuit we ever went backmost to ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’.’ No substance however galore state hits I had I ever went backmost to stone ’n’ rotation ‘cause that’s what radical want, and that’s what I bash best.”

In 1970 — successful what galore saw arsenic a transparent effort to salvage his crumbling matrimony — a momentarily penitent Lewis abandoned country, proclaimed himself “saved” and recorded a brace of gospel albums. He was playing state euphony again wrong weeks, and Myra Gale filed for divorcement that year. Lewis piled up respective lesser state hits arsenic the ‘70s progressed, and issued the requisite all-star London day “The Session” successful 1973.

His transgressive behaviour regularly captured the headlines. In 1976, aft wrecking his Rolls-Royce successful a drunk-driving accident, helium was arrested, intoxicated, with a loaded derringer connected the grounds of Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate. The aforesaid year, helium changeable his bassist Butch Owens successful the thorax with a .357 Magnum handgun; Owens survived, and lone insignificant charges were filed. Failure to wage income taxes for years led to a 1979 raid connected Lewis’ location by the Internal Revenue Service. Thanks to a assortment of alcohol-related ailments, helium bounced successful and retired of hospitals for years, losing a 3rd of his tummy to ulcer country successful 1985.

Amid the chaos, helium managed to prolong a career. A 1979-80 sojourn astatine Elektra Records yielded the latter-day signature “Rockin’ My Life Away,” a heartfelt No. 10 screen of the dreamy “Wizard of Oz” modular “Over the Rainbow” and the No. 4 mid-life lament “Thirty Nine and Holding.” A ‘80s stint with MCA produced nary hits, but Lewis garnered attraction successful 1986 erstwhile helium returned to Sun Studio for “Class of ’55,” a reunion medium connected Smash that besides featured Cash, Perkins and Roy Orbison.

In 1989, Lewis recorded the euphony for Jim McBride’s biopic “Great Balls of Fire,” drawn from ex-wife Myra Gale’s caustic depiction of their beingness together; helium was portrayed, unconvincingly, by Dennis Quaid. Its taxable was reportedly not fond of the picture.

Except for “Young Blood,” a tortuously completed 1995 medium for Sire Records, Lewis contented himself with unrecorded performing until 2006, erstwhile the all-star duets acceptable “Last Man Standing” was issued by multi-millionaire Steve Bing’s Shangri-La Music.

In the 2015 variation of his 1975 publication “Mystery Train,” Greil Marcus wrote of the seemingly indestructible performer’s comeback, “Lewis’ decease has been announced immoderate fig of times implicit the years, which gave him the chance, successful 2006, to spit astatine the satellite with ‘Last Man Standing.’”

A brace of likewise styled sequels followed: “Mean Old Man” (2010) and “Rock & Roll Time” (2014). A 2019 changeable sidelined him and affected his quality to play the piano, but a 2020 quality study said helium would grounds vocals connected an medium of gospel euphony for shaper T Bone Burnett.

In 2014’s “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” helium asked his biographer Rick Bragg, with immoderate understatement, “I’ve had an interestin’ life, haven’t I?”

Lewis is the taxable of the 2022 critically acclaimed documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble successful Mind” from manager Ethan Coen — his archetypal solo diagnostic — and shaper T Bone Burnett.

Lewis suffered from a insignificant changeable successful 2019. He posted connected Instagram that helium was excessively sick to be his Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony last week.

“It is with heartfelt sadness and disappointment that I constitute to you contiguous from my sick bed, alternatively than beryllium capable to stock my thoughts successful person,” Lewis wrote. “I tried everything I could to physique up the spot to travel contiguous — I’ve looked truthful guardant to it since I recovered retired astir it earlier this year. My sincerest apologies to each of you for missing this good event, but I anticipation to spot you each soon.”

Divorced by Myra Gale successful 1970, Lewis remarried 4 times. Wife Jaren Pate drowned successful 1983. A two-month matrimony to Shawn Stephens ended with her fatal cause overdose successful 1984. Sixth spouse Kerrie McCarver divorced him successful 2004. He wedded his caregiver, Judith, successful 2012.

He is survived by his wife, Judith Coghlan Lewis, his children Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Phoebe Lewis and Lori Lancaster, sister Linda Gail Lewis, relative Jimmy Swaggart and galore grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

Donations whitethorn beryllium made successful Jerry Lee Lewis’ grant to the Arthritis Foundation oregon MusiCares – the non-profit instauration of the GRAMMYs / National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.