Jerry Lee Lewis (1935 - 2022)

Yesterday I saw a photo of two very old men. One lying in a bed, like a sickly, worn out little bird. Kris Kristofferson visited Jerry Lee Lewis to bring him an award he could no longer go and collect himself. In the evening a friend asked: "are you going to play a Jerry Lee Lewis song"? I did not have to ask him why, having seen the picture in the morning. The answer was no, the rest of the band did not want to play more rock and roll song than we already do, including our keyboard player!

With Jerry Lee Lewis the last of the four rock and roll greats, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, has past away. Undeniably Lewis was one of these storms that rocked the U.S. of the 1950s, not just in a musical sense. Their music shook the very foundations of society opening the door for a youth culture and for performers, bar Elvis and Jerry Lee, who wrote their own repertoire.

For me Jerry Lee Lewis entered my life in 1972 with his only hitsingle in The Netherlands, 'Chantilly Lace'. I had no idea at the time of the legacy the man brought with him, let alone the scandals surrounding his past. 'Chantilly Lace' was an exciting song, I still have the single, 50 years old this year. What I lacked was the context, not being familiar with either the rock and roll of the 1950s nor the earliest incarnations of the great pop bands of the 1960s covering these songs, only catching on in the second part. As a small kid during that time.

With the years, I did get to know Lewis' old hits and they are so exciting. The man hit the nail on the head with his two great hits, 'Great Balls Of Fire' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On'. He took others' songs and turned them into raucous rock anthems that will outlive his days for a long time. His piano was what an anvil is to a smith. Something to bang on as hard as necessary, with whatever tools available.

After the rock and roll apparently he did the same in country music. I think I only listened to one song and that was enough to last me a lifetime. It did give the man a second, successful career in the U.S. though.

Still, if I have to compare him to the other three, I'd say he's at number four. The other three outranked him easily. Little Richard has the better, and more of them, songs, Elvis is the best performer and outlived the rock and roll era to record many more hits later on his career, while Chuck Berry has the songs that almost every cover band with members of a certain age, including The Rolling Stones when they feel like it, still play to great acclaim from the audience. 'Johnny B. Goode' is forever the rock and roll song.

Jerry Lee Lewis is no more but he has co-defined an era that will be identified in history, as a one of a major change. How many musicians can have such a claim to fame?

Wout de Natris