The best Jerry Lee Lewis show I ever saw was actually a dream. It happened years ago in some nameless, Morphean honky-tonk. There was no stage — just an ancient upright piano surrounded by tables and chairs, and when the Killer hit the first note, the room exploded into a rock 'n' roll maelstrom. It's an image burned so deeply that I often have to remind myself it was a dream. That's not to say that the three times I've seen the performer in this world were any less amazing, but the Jerry Lee Lewis legend has always held equal or greater footing than reality.
The weaving of that legend began long before Jerry Lee's first recording session or frantic destruction of a piano onstage. By the time Mamie and Elmo Lewis' second son first touched a piano at the age of 9, the threads of the tale were already being spun. The components of an epic Southern story of sin, salvation and success through a "God-given talent" coalesced around hot, humid Sundays in a small Assembly of God church house in the Mississippi River town of Ferriday, La. The pieces were polished by nights spent huddled next to the glow of a radio dial as the Hillbilly Shakespeare wove his epic sagas of sin, heartbreak and the "Lovesick Blues." And they were tempered by clandestine expeditions into the forbidden world of the local black juke joint, Haney's Big House, where the full display of human passions, demon alcohol and the beat of rhythm & blues could be seen in all their worldly and seductive glory.
All of the pieces snapped into place on a sunny November day, when Jerry Lee Lewis walked into the offices of Sun Recording Studio to make the boastful and rather eccentric claim that he could "play the piano like Chet Atkins." By the time Lewis' second single, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," was burning up the airwaves of America and scandalizing bluenoses, he had clocked enough hijinks and outrageousness to secure a place as a rock 'n' roll legend, but the ethereal hand that composes myths and moves on continued to loiter. In retrospect, we can read the astounding rock 'n' roll odyssey of the Killer and marvel how each piece seems to be a part of a tightly plotted tale — the scandal of his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin that led to his disgrace and fall, the years spent wandering in the musical wilderness sustaining his career through sheer force of will, his reinvention as a hardcore honky-tonk hit-maker in the late 1960s, multiple brushes with death through the self-inflicted ravages of a too-wild lifestyle, his eventual recognition as a classic American musical icon, and on through births, marriages, drugs, arrests, alcohol, divorces and deaths.
Despite the cacophony of Jerry Lee's personal life, his music endured. His time at Sun Records began with astounding jam sessions in which he spent hours in the studio simply working his way through a classic songbook of country, blues, pop and whatever tunes were contained beneath that greased-back shock of blond curls. The sessions eventually became more focused as the search for hits became the order of the day. The search became more desperate and less focused as he toiled in the obscurity of his exile from the airwaves. In 1963, he moved to Smash Records, where he began an incredible string of recordings that sizzled and spat with all the frustrations of dispossessed rock 'n' roll royalty while the black vinyl singles sat ignored in the "Do Not Play" boxes of radio stations across America. When he finally returned to the charts, it was not a case of Jerry Lee Lewis "turning country," but simply a matter of fine-tuning his focus to another place and time.
In the years that followed, the incredible legacy of recordings and live performances continued to grow alongside the legend of "The Killer." No one has ever been able to count Jerry Lee Lewis out. For every brush with death, there has been a recovery. And each time he has seemed to exhaust his incalculably deep well of talent, he has surprised listeners with an inspired new recording or breath-taking live show.
Now at the age of 79, with a new album, a new biography by Pulitzer-winning author Rick Bragg (Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story) and his appearance at the Ryman this Saturday night, the saga of Jerry Lee Lewis continues to unfurl and inspire legends that will be told and retold long after the last note is pounded on a keyboard and the final piano stool is kicked over.
Email Music@nashvillescene.com.
