GOODNESS GRACIOUS, JERRY’S EXPIRED!
After deadpoolers’ eyes were peeled following a TMZ death hoax, the great balls of fire have finally extinguished (or just begun, depending on how you look at it) for grand old hellraiser of rock-and-roll Jerry Lee Lewis, who somehow made it to 87. With a lifestyle that shook nerves and rattled brains, few could have predicted The Killer would be the last standing of the 50s rock A-listers. Even when it was down to a two-man race between him and Don Everly, I still bungled it.
Born a poor, God-fearing farmer’s boy in Louisiana, the Lewis family already had several ivory ticklers, and his father mortgaged the house to buy young Jerry Lee a piano. Sent to a Christian university to hone his craft, his boogie-rendition of a holy song struck a nerve with the authorities, and he was expelled for making gospel music listenable. Devil be damned, Lewis toured nightclubs and rode the rising rock-and-roll tide, and was everpresent throughout Sun Records in the mid-50s between his solo records, session work, and the fabled “Million Dollar Quartet” jam session featuring him, Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins.
Lewis’s big mainline hits were scant in amount, but sturdy enough in quality to establish his credentials as a rock and roll architect. The fervent groove of his most enduring classics, “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, are irresistible, and smaller hits like “Breathless” and “High School Confidential” rounded off his jukebox legacy. It was his commanding stage presence above all that made him a star, unforgettably kicking his seat aside with the piano at his mercy in ways unlike any pianist before him. He boogied his fingers along, plunked his foot on the keys, and sometimes even jumped on the grand. The anecdote that he once set his piano on fire to upstage closing act Chuck Berry was likely urban legend, but it says a lot about Jerry Lee Lewis that it sounded plausible.
If his stage presence was rowdy, it looked mundane next to his outrageous private life rife with violence and addiction. His career as a rock star came to a screeching halt as word came out he was marrying his 13-year-old cousin. Even in the era of “You’re Sixteen”, this was a bit too much for the general populace, and it was one of many career halts of 50s rockers from the tragic (Buddy Holly’s death) to the obligated (Elvis’s military service) to the shady (Chuck Berry jailed for being a creep) that left the musical landscape drastically changed. He continued to release rock records without the prior superstardom, before continuing his God-and-Satan tug-of-war and regalvanising his career through a genre whose adherents are less likely to care about marrying your teenaged cousin: country music.
As the country hits rolled in, the personal life remained turbulent: Two of his children died young in accidents. He tore through seven abusive marriages that typically ended once his spouse got fed up with his wifebeating and filed for divorce. In two instances, the wife died; some speculate in at least one death that Lewis’s Killer moniker was a bit too on-the-nose. He persistently tried to outfox the IRS to no avail. He accidentally shot his bassist while trying to fire at a Coke bottle, and drunkenly barged through Elvis’s Graceland gates one inebriated night while threatening to shoot the King. The addictions that killed Elvis seemed destined to do the same for Lewis, who was barely patched together by the early 80s and barely survived the damage done to his stomach, yet somehow his constitution defied all conventional wisdom.
Lewis’s final decades were relatively sedate by his standards, touring in both rock and country circles and becoming an inaugural inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He still courted controversy: his seventh and final marriage (which somehow ended with his death) was to the ex-wife of the brother of the cousin he previously married, and he had a legal feud with one of his daughters. He kept outliving his rock and roll contemporaries, but suffered a stroke in 2019 and a recent bout of (rockin’) pneumonia proved too much even for his seeming indestructability. If the man himself was too dodgy to really be mourned, it nevertheless is an end of an era to see the rambunctious supernova of 50s rock stars fully fizzled out.
Though we still have Pat Boone. Lucky us.
Jerry Lee Lewis’s increased frailty and general sense of “how the fuck didn’t he die thirty years ago” made him a secure Drop 40 pick, and there were 51 pickins in the barn, whose barn, what barn, the DDP barn. Consequentially there’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on in the ol’ scoreboard. Banana’s Peel Slippers and Droller Coaster boogie up to the top ten. He’s a rare joker hit for 12 Lords A-Leaving, 8 Ladies Dying, and Bucket Of Blood and a duet of music themes also double up. #1 Hits keeps in the hunt in the Theme Team League, while other beneficiaries include The Love Boat, I’m Sorry For Your Trouble, the old lady, and one of mine, mine, mine, mine.
Jerry Lee Lewis
29 September 1935 – 28 October 2022, aged 87
51 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 9 POINTS, 🃏 (x4) 18 POINTS)