Later that same year, he went to Memphis and recorded Southern Roots: Back Home to Memphis, a soul-infused rock album produced by Huey Meaux. At the time of the release, Lewis had been playing Iago in a rock and roll adaptation of Othello called Catch My Soul in Los Angeles but was soon rushed back to Nashville to record another batch of songs with producer Jerry Kennedy. Sanctification! Although to some sources some music was recorded during several sessions, as of 2022 the album has not yet been released. He didn't fit in with the family values crowd.
The livestream special, Whole Lotta Celebratin' Goin' On, featured appearances and performances by Willie Nelson, Elton John, Mike Love, Priscilla Presley, Joe Walsh, and others. He has won four Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. His next album, Mean Old Man, was released in September 2010 and reached No. 2, The SessionRecorded in London with Great Artists, "Jerry Lee Lewis, Known for 1950s Rockabilly Piano Hits 'Great Balls of Fire' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On,' Has Suffered a Stroke", "A Piano Pounder Stops by, but Things Remain Orderly", Album Review: "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg", "Jerry Lee Lewis, the Enduring Rebel of Rock 'n' Roll", "Keith Whitley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Galante are headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame", Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies, "Natchez Under The Hill Saloon Natchez Mississippi", "Show 8 The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the Rock-a-Billies. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential". I learned to play like that." Appearing on Memphis Sounds with George Klein in 2011, Lewis credited his older piano-playing cousin Carl McVoy as being a crucial influence, stating, "He was a great piano player, a great singer, and a nice-looking man, carried himself real well. 1 country hits included "To Make Love Sweeter for You", "There Must Be More to Love Than This", "Would You Take Another Chance on Me" and "Me and Bobby McGee". [30] This aspect of Lewis's character was depicted in Waylon Payne's portrayal of Lewis in the 2005 film Walk the Line, based on Cash's autobiographies. The public downfall of his cousin, television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart around the same time, resulted in more adverse publicity to a troubled family. [98], Not to be confused with the American comedian and humanitarian. 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. When Lewis daringly played a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God Is Real" at a church assembly, it ended his association with the school the same night.
Just before three o'clock in the morning, Lewis accidentally smashed into the famous Graceland gates. [25] On the live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis is heard naming Moon Mullican as an artist who inspired him. On February 10, 2008, he appeared with John Fogerty and Little Richard on the 50th Grammy Awards, performing "Great Balls of Fire" in a medley with "Good Golly Miss Molly". Rock and roll piano up to that point had been defined by Rosco Gordon, Ike Turner, and to an extent, Ray Charles. Jerry had always recorded country music, and his country breakthrough "Another Place, Another Time" had been preceded by countless country records starting with his first, 'Crazy Arms', in 1956." [9][11][12][13][41] In Joe Bonomo's book Lost and Found, producer Siggi Loch stated that the recording setup was uncomplicated, with microphones placed as close to the instruments as possible and a stereo mic placed in the audience to capture the ambience. [16] He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022. After a string of hit country albums, he decided to record a gospel album for the first time in 1970. Another recording of Lewis playing an instrumental boogie arrangement of the Glenn Miller Orchestra favorite "In the Mood" was issued on the Phillips International label under the pseudonym "the Hawk".[39]. In a remarkable turnaround, Lewis became the most bankable country star in the world. [80], Lewis lived on a ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi with his family. [18] In 2004, they ranked him No. According to Rick Bragg's authorized 2014 biography, "the Killer" was in a foul mood when he showed up at Trans Maximus Studios in Memphis to record: "During these sessions, he insulted the producer, threatened to kill a photographer, and drank and medicated his way into but not out of a fog." [71] In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse,[71] charging that she had been "subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable. On November 22, 1976, Lewis was arrested outside Elvis Presley's Graceland home for allegedly intending to shoot him. The film was based on the book by Lewis's ex-wife, Myra Gale Lewis, and starred Dennis Quaid as Lewis, Winona Ryder as Myra, and Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Swaggart.
[29] His first TV appearance, in which he demonstrated some of these moves, was on The Steve Allen Show on July 28, 1957, where he played "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On". In the 21st century, Lewis continues to tour around the world and still releases new albums. supertalk.fm/jerry-lee-lewis-to-be-inducted-into-country-hall-of-fame/, Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls Of Fire, What'd I Say & Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. Lewis's successes continued throughout the decades and he embraced his rock and roll past with songs such as a cover of The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and Mack Vickery's "Rockin' My Life Away". ", As recounted in a 2015 online Rolling Stone article by Beville Dunkerly, Lewis opened with his comeback single "Another Place, Another Time". In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll, Great Balls of Fire!, brought him back into the public eye, especially when he decided to re-record all his songs for the movie soundtrack. ", "Episode 59: "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" by Jerry Lee Lewis - A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs", "Cousin's ex becomes Jerry Lee Lewis's 7th wife", "Fame, Tragedy and Fame Again: Jerry Lee Lewis Has Been Through Great Balls of Fire, Otherwise Known as Hell", "Jerry Lee Is Still Burnin' Down the House", "The Strange and Mysterious Death of Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis", "Jerry Lee Lewis's short-lived music success", "Jerry Lee Lewis' driver told a federal court Tuesday", "Jerry Lee Lewis sued by German company in Irish court", "Jerry Lee Lewis Home, Nesbit, Mississippi Backroads of American Music", "Jerry Lee Lewis' Lawsuit Against Daughter Dismissed by Judge", "Judge dismisses most of the suit between Jerry Lee Lewis, family", "The Killer at Peace: Jerry Lee Lewis' Golden Years", "Jerry Lee Lewis Files Bankruptcy Petition", "Singer Jerry Lee Lewis suffers minor stroke", "Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series", "Classic Jerry Lee Lewis | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards", "Mercury Smashesand Rockin' Sessions Jerry Lee Lewis | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards", "Ol' Glory - Jerry Lee Lewis | Song Info", Jerry Lee Lewis Page for His Hits, Biography, Listing of all Lewis's Sun Records recordings and alternatives, In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album, By Request: More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me), What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me), When He Walks on You (Like You Have Walked On Me), Citizen Kane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Movie on Record, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook), America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't, Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, Faceted Application of Subject Terminology, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Lee_Lewis&oldid=1100737740, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts, Articles with dead external links from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 July 2022, at 12:25. His last big hit with Mercury was "Middle Age Crazy", which made it to number 4 in 1977. An EP featuring this song and four more was also released on November 11. The team at Smash (a division of Mercury Records) came up with "I'm on Fire", a song that they felt would be perfect for Lewis and, as Colin Escott writes in the sleeve to the retrospective A Half Century of Hits, "Mercury held the presses, thinking they had found Lewis's comeback hit, and it might have happened if the Beatles hadn't arrived in America, changing radio playlists almost overnight. The hit of his set was a cover of R&B artist Sticks McGhee's "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee". Lewis and Swaggart have had a complex relationship over the years. I am thrilled to welcome this deserving class to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Im just overwhelmed that they asked me here today, Lewis, 86, said during an event earlier this week at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, adding that his career has taught him to be a good person and treat people right. [62][63]. [24] On November 19, 1949, Lewis made his first public performance of his career, playing with a country and western band at a car dealership in Ferriday. [73] They had one daughter, Lori Lee Lewis (b. As Colin Escott observes in the sleeve to the 1995 compilation Killer Country, the conversion to country music in 1968 "looked at the time like a radical shift, but it was neither as abrupt nor as unexpected as it seemed. Presley himself died at Graceland eight months later. Are you sanctified? One of his latter unreleased Sun recordings, "One Minute Past Eternity", was issued as a single and soared to number 2 on the country chart, following Lewis's recent Mercury hit "She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye". King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Lewis, Johnny Cash and others, and also opened a studio in Nashville. His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. The production on his early country albums, such as Another Place, Another Time and She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye, was sparse, quite different from the slick "Nashville sound" that was predominant on country radio at the time, and also expressed a full commitment by Lewis to a country audience. In 1986, Lewis was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What followed was a string of hits that no one could have ever predicted, although country music always remained a major part of Lewis's repertoire. Lewis-Loftin and her husband counter-sued, claiming Judith Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis III interfered in the business relationship. The remake of Lewis's old Sun cut "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" would be the album's hit single, reaching number 20 on the Billboard country chart and peaking at number 41 on the pop chart. In his youth, he began playing the piano with two of his cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a popular country music singer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular televangelist). [77], In 1993, Lewis moved to Ireland with his family in what was suggested (but denied) to be a move to avoid issues with the Internal Revenue Service. Lewis is primarily known for his "boogie-woogie" style, which is characterized by a regular left-hand bass figure and dancing beat, but his command of the instrument and highly individualistic style set him apart. In December 2019, Lewis was honored with a Mississippi Country Music Trail marker at his ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi to celebrate his contributions to country music. [15] Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. None of them was doing that. "[86], In the 1990 documentary The Jerry Lee Lewis Story, Lewis said to the interviewer, "The Bible doesn't even speak of religion. [31][32], His dynamic performance style can be seen in films such as High School Confidential (he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck), and Jamboree.
[53][54], On October 27, 2020, to celebrate Lewis' 85th birthday, a livestream aired on YouTube, Facebook and his official website. "[20], Lewis was born to Elmo Kidd Lewis Sr. (1902-1979) and Mary "Mamie" Herron (1912-1971)[21][22][23] Lewis in Ferriday, Concordia Parish. However, the next year, the IRS seized property from Lewis ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi. Frustrated by Smash's inability to score a hit, Lewis was planning on leaving the label when promotions manager Eddie Kilroy called him and pitched the idea of cutting a pure country record in Nashville.
The livestream special, Whole Lotta Celebratin' Goin' On, featured appearances and performances by Willie Nelson, Elton John, Mike Love, Priscilla Presley, Joe Walsh, and others. He has won four Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and two Grammy Hall of Fame Awards. His next album, Mean Old Man, was released in September 2010 and reached No. 2, The SessionRecorded in London with Great Artists, "Jerry Lee Lewis, Known for 1950s Rockabilly Piano Hits 'Great Balls of Fire' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On,' Has Suffered a Stroke", "A Piano Pounder Stops by, but Things Remain Orderly", Album Review: "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg", "Jerry Lee Lewis, the Enduring Rebel of Rock 'n' Roll", "Keith Whitley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Joe Galante are headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame", Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies, "Natchez Under The Hill Saloon Natchez Mississippi", "Show 8 The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the Rock-a-Billies. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential". I learned to play like that." Appearing on Memphis Sounds with George Klein in 2011, Lewis credited his older piano-playing cousin Carl McVoy as being a crucial influence, stating, "He was a great piano player, a great singer, and a nice-looking man, carried himself real well. 1 country hits included "To Make Love Sweeter for You", "There Must Be More to Love Than This", "Would You Take Another Chance on Me" and "Me and Bobby McGee". [30] This aspect of Lewis's character was depicted in Waylon Payne's portrayal of Lewis in the 2005 film Walk the Line, based on Cash's autobiographies. The public downfall of his cousin, television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart around the same time, resulted in more adverse publicity to a troubled family. [98], Not to be confused with the American comedian and humanitarian. 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. When Lewis daringly played a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God Is Real" at a church assembly, it ended his association with the school the same night.
Just before three o'clock in the morning, Lewis accidentally smashed into the famous Graceland gates. [25] On the live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, Lewis is heard naming Moon Mullican as an artist who inspired him. On February 10, 2008, he appeared with John Fogerty and Little Richard on the 50th Grammy Awards, performing "Great Balls of Fire" in a medley with "Good Golly Miss Molly". Rock and roll piano up to that point had been defined by Rosco Gordon, Ike Turner, and to an extent, Ray Charles. Jerry had always recorded country music, and his country breakthrough "Another Place, Another Time" had been preceded by countless country records starting with his first, 'Crazy Arms', in 1956." [9][11][12][13][41] In Joe Bonomo's book Lost and Found, producer Siggi Loch stated that the recording setup was uncomplicated, with microphones placed as close to the instruments as possible and a stereo mic placed in the audience to capture the ambience. [16] He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2022. After a string of hit country albums, he decided to record a gospel album for the first time in 1970. Another recording of Lewis playing an instrumental boogie arrangement of the Glenn Miller Orchestra favorite "In the Mood" was issued on the Phillips International label under the pseudonym "the Hawk".[39]. In a remarkable turnaround, Lewis became the most bankable country star in the world. [80], Lewis lived on a ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi with his family. [18] In 2004, they ranked him No. According to Rick Bragg's authorized 2014 biography, "the Killer" was in a foul mood when he showed up at Trans Maximus Studios in Memphis to record: "During these sessions, he insulted the producer, threatened to kill a photographer, and drank and medicated his way into but not out of a fog." [71] In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse,[71] charging that she had been "subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable. On November 22, 1976, Lewis was arrested outside Elvis Presley's Graceland home for allegedly intending to shoot him. The film was based on the book by Lewis's ex-wife, Myra Gale Lewis, and starred Dennis Quaid as Lewis, Winona Ryder as Myra, and Alec Baldwin as Jimmy Swaggart.
[29] His first TV appearance, in which he demonstrated some of these moves, was on The Steve Allen Show on July 28, 1957, where he played "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On". In the 21st century, Lewis continues to tour around the world and still releases new albums. supertalk.fm/jerry-lee-lewis-to-be-inducted-into-country-hall-of-fame/, Jerry Lee Lewis "Great Balls Of Fire, What'd I Say & Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. Lewis's successes continued throughout the decades and he embraced his rock and roll past with songs such as a cover of The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and Mack Vickery's "Rockin' My Life Away". ", As recounted in a 2015 online Rolling Stone article by Beville Dunkerly, Lewis opened with his comeback single "Another Place, Another Time". In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll, Great Balls of Fire!, brought him back into the public eye, especially when he decided to re-record all his songs for the movie soundtrack. ", "Episode 59: "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" by Jerry Lee Lewis - A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs", "Cousin's ex becomes Jerry Lee Lewis's 7th wife", "Fame, Tragedy and Fame Again: Jerry Lee Lewis Has Been Through Great Balls of Fire, Otherwise Known as Hell", "Jerry Lee Is Still Burnin' Down the House", "The Strange and Mysterious Death of Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis", "Jerry Lee Lewis's short-lived music success", "Jerry Lee Lewis' driver told a federal court Tuesday", "Jerry Lee Lewis sued by German company in Irish court", "Jerry Lee Lewis Home, Nesbit, Mississippi Backroads of American Music", "Jerry Lee Lewis' Lawsuit Against Daughter Dismissed by Judge", "Judge dismisses most of the suit between Jerry Lee Lewis, family", "The Killer at Peace: Jerry Lee Lewis' Golden Years", "Jerry Lee Lewis Files Bankruptcy Petition", "Singer Jerry Lee Lewis suffers minor stroke", "Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series", "Classic Jerry Lee Lewis | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards", "Mercury Smashesand Rockin' Sessions Jerry Lee Lewis | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards", "Ol' Glory - Jerry Lee Lewis | Song Info", Jerry Lee Lewis Page for His Hits, Biography, Listing of all Lewis's Sun Records recordings and alternatives, In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album, By Request: More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth, She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me), What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me), When He Walks on You (Like You Have Walked On Me), Citizen Kane (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Movie on Record, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook), America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't, Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, Faceted Application of Subject Terminology, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerry_Lee_Lewis&oldid=1100737740, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts, Articles with dead external links from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 27 July 2022, at 12:25. His last big hit with Mercury was "Middle Age Crazy", which made it to number 4 in 1977. An EP featuring this song and four more was also released on November 11. The team at Smash (a division of Mercury Records) came up with "I'm on Fire", a song that they felt would be perfect for Lewis and, as Colin Escott writes in the sleeve to the retrospective A Half Century of Hits, "Mercury held the presses, thinking they had found Lewis's comeback hit, and it might have happened if the Beatles hadn't arrived in America, changing radio playlists almost overnight. The hit of his set was a cover of R&B artist Sticks McGhee's "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee". Lewis and Swaggart have had a complex relationship over the years. I am thrilled to welcome this deserving class to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Im just overwhelmed that they asked me here today, Lewis, 86, said during an event earlier this week at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, adding that his career has taught him to be a good person and treat people right. [62][63]. [24] On November 19, 1949, Lewis made his first public performance of his career, playing with a country and western band at a car dealership in Ferriday. [73] They had one daughter, Lori Lee Lewis (b. As Colin Escott observes in the sleeve to the 1995 compilation Killer Country, the conversion to country music in 1968 "looked at the time like a radical shift, but it was neither as abrupt nor as unexpected as it seemed. Presley himself died at Graceland eight months later. Are you sanctified? One of his latter unreleased Sun recordings, "One Minute Past Eternity", was issued as a single and soared to number 2 on the country chart, following Lewis's recent Mercury hit "She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye". King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Lewis, Johnny Cash and others, and also opened a studio in Nashville. His parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. The production on his early country albums, such as Another Place, Another Time and She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye, was sparse, quite different from the slick "Nashville sound" that was predominant on country radio at the time, and also expressed a full commitment by Lewis to a country audience. In 1986, Lewis was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. What followed was a string of hits that no one could have ever predicted, although country music always remained a major part of Lewis's repertoire. Lewis-Loftin and her husband counter-sued, claiming Judith Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis III interfered in the business relationship. The remake of Lewis's old Sun cut "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" would be the album's hit single, reaching number 20 on the Billboard country chart and peaking at number 41 on the pop chart. In his youth, he began playing the piano with two of his cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a popular country music singer) and Jimmy Swaggart (later a popular televangelist). [77], In 1993, Lewis moved to Ireland with his family in what was suggested (but denied) to be a move to avoid issues with the Internal Revenue Service. Lewis is primarily known for his "boogie-woogie" style, which is characterized by a regular left-hand bass figure and dancing beat, but his command of the instrument and highly individualistic style set him apart. In December 2019, Lewis was honored with a Mississippi Country Music Trail marker at his ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi to celebrate his contributions to country music. [15] Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. None of them was doing that. "[86], In the 1990 documentary The Jerry Lee Lewis Story, Lewis said to the interviewer, "The Bible doesn't even speak of religion. [31][32], His dynamic performance style can be seen in films such as High School Confidential (he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck), and Jamboree.
[53][54], On October 27, 2020, to celebrate Lewis' 85th birthday, a livestream aired on YouTube, Facebook and his official website. "[20], Lewis was born to Elmo Kidd Lewis Sr. (1902-1979) and Mary "Mamie" Herron (1912-1971)[21][22][23] Lewis in Ferriday, Concordia Parish. However, the next year, the IRS seized property from Lewis ranch in Nesbit, Mississippi. Frustrated by Smash's inability to score a hit, Lewis was planning on leaving the label when promotions manager Eddie Kilroy called him and pitched the idea of cutting a pure country record in Nashville.