"It's the singer, not the song." It's a cliché, no doubt — but when it comes to Jerry Lee Lewis, it's an instructive one.
To focus on the songs alone when considering Lewis is a bit of a fool's errand — even though he had a writerly hand in some of his hits, and he covered some of the finest tunes of his century. The headline was his aural violence, his breakneck tempi, that voice that cracked from bone-chilling, locked-gaze warnings to hellacious shrieks.
In the course of a single, two-minute song, Lewis banged his piano keys with his feet; his eyes whipped back and forth like Jack Nicholson gone postal; he threw his neatly-combed head around to reveal some ancestor of the Misfits devilock. He once burned a piano when he was asked to play before Chuck Berry. ("To the ground," he proudly clarified.) He wasn't just punk before punk. He arguably outpunked the punks.
Sadly, the last man standing — as foundational rock 'n' roll pioneers go — is no more. Lewis died at his home in Mississippi on Oct. 28 after a long period of ill health, as announced by his publicist. He was 87. In his lifetime, the Recording Academy awarded Lewis a GRAMMY and bestowed him with a Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2005; "Great Balls Of Fire" and "Whole Lot Of Shakin' Going On" have been inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.
How exactly did he fit into the puzzle that included Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, and the rest? Let's hear it from the Killer himself. "There's a difference between a phenomenon and a stylist," he told the record-collector magazine Goldmine in 1981. "I'm a stylist, Elvis was the phenomenon, and don't you forget it."
To see that style in action, just watch his performance of "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" — the one on "The Steve Allen Show," the first one that comes up on YouTube. On paper, the lyrics threaten so much as hip-swivels and hoedowns — they're about as menacing as the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World.
But with Lewis behind the piano, the song becomes a call for nuclear apocalypse. Amazingly, low fidelity and decades of desensitization haven't done much to defang this clip: it will always be disconcerting on some level to watch an ostensibly functional man scream at a piano.
Of course, in life, Lewis was no such thing. For reasons you can Google, Lewis' life was erratic at best and flat-out destructive at worst; many lives were unquestionably sullied because he was in them. But despite all the rebellion and mania he threw into his work, music alone can't hurt a fly — and the Stylist of Rock 'n' Roll's canon enriched countless lives.
Here are 10 essential recordings by Jerry Lee Lewis, whose like we'll never see again — guaranteed.
"Crazy Arms"
The Killer arrived basically fully-formed with his debut single, a cover of country luminary Ray Price's "Crazy Arms." While it's relatively restrained in comparison with later onslaughts like 1964's epochal Live at the Star Club, it showcases his boogie-woogie dynamism and highlights his formative country influences — which he'd later unabashedly embrace.
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On"
The invitation to a knife-fight — of disputed authorship, natch — where Lewis fully grabbed the, er, bull by the horn for the first time. (Sidebar: Big Star's outtake of the tune during their quaalude-fueled, psychologically unraveling Third/Sister Lovers sessions in the '70s is less a pitch-perfect homage than a cry for help.)
"Great Balls of Fire"
The sheer, unbridled sexuality of early blues and rock 'n' roll still has the capacity to shock, no matter how much scholarly rigor we throw at it. Lewis' quivering "Mmm… feels good!" section is the carnal urge and postcoital buzz rolled into one.
"Breathless"
This rendition of an Otis Blackwell tune adds up to another of Lewis' butterflies-in-stomach tunes; it had an afterlife in the 1983 romantic thriller Breathless, starring Richard Gere. Mostly, it's just more Killer at his prime — it remains a throwback, jukebox-ready favorite.
"Lewis Boogie"
Every master needs a theme song; "Lewis Boogie" was his. In 1979, Rolling Stone characterized it as a "mixture of local Black influences, the hillbilly boogie and rhythm & blues that were popular on Southern jukeboxes when he was growing up, and — the most crucial ingredient — the Killer's staunchly individual musical genius."
"I'm On Fire"
Sharing a core sentiment with Bruce Springsteen's haunting tune of the same name, "I'm on Fire" pulls from the "Great Balls of Fire" bag to showcase Lewis in all his confident swagger.
"High School Confidential"
Lewis was effectively exiled from the charts in the late '50s and early '60s for marrying his underage cousin, once removed. But he only honed his attack as an artist — which leads us to Live at the Star Club, a classic recording of a Hamburg date from 1964.
At the height of Beatlemania, Lewis showed the world just how violent acoustic music can sound this side of late-in-life Coltrane. The studio version is a must-hear, too, but this version renders it truly combustible.
"Chantilly Lace"
Would the world remember the Big Bopper if not for the plane crash? If so, it would be because of "Chantilly Lace," and any other hits he would have slugged out had he lived. Lewis gave it a whirl in 1972, doing the late progenitor proud.
"Another Place, Another Time"
While it doesn't necessarily line up with Lewis cleaning up his act, his later work — an exploration of the country music he loved so dearly — acts as something of a sobering Sunday morning to his long, long Saturday night. "Another Place, Another Time," his first country single, reached No. 4 on the Billboard country chart.
"You Win Again"
Hank Williams was one of the primary, fountainheads of psychologically incisive American song, which absolutely applies to his resigning "You Win Again." From Lewis' lips and piano, it feels like a repudiation of his rough and rowdy ways.
But the way it electrified his work, and made it leave such a shocking, indelible mark on the American canon of song, means Lewis might be having the last laugh — wherever he is.
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