CNN
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Jerry Lee Lewis, the piano-pounding, foot-stomping singer who electrified early rock ‘n’ roll with hits like “Nice Balls of Hearth” and “Complete Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” earlier than marital scandal derailed his profession, has died, in line with an announcement from his consultant, Zach Farnum. He was 87.
Lewis handed away at his dwelling in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis, the assertion stated. Farnum advised CNN that Lewis died of “pure causes” when reached by cellphone.
His seventh spouse, Judith, was by his aspect when he died and Lewis “advised her, in his closing days, that he welcomed the hereafter, and that he was not afraid,” the assertion added.
Together with Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and others, Lewis was one of many main figures of the Fifties rock period and a grasp showman – nicknamed “The Killer” – whose uncooked, uninhibited performances drove younger followers into spasmodic matches.
“I used to be born to be on a stage. I couldn’t wait to be on it. I dreamed about it. And I’ve been on one all my life,” Lewis stated in “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Personal Story,” a 2014 biography by Rick Bragg. “That’s the place I’m the happiest.”
However offstage, the singer’s private life was turbulent. Lewis was close to the height of his recognition in 1958 when the general public realized that he had married Myra Gale Brown, his first cousin. She was 13 on the time; Lewis was 22.
Information of the wedding leaked in London, the place Lewis had flown to play some live shows. Lewis advised the press that Myra was 15, however the fact quickly got here out and precipitated an outcry, as newspapers blared such headlines as “Followers Aghast at Little one Bride.” Audiences heckled Lewis, and the tour was canceled after three exhibits.
Lewis continued to document and tour over the subsequent decade, however his rockabilly music didn’t promote within the Beatles period and he couldn’t regain the recognition of his early years – till he made an unlikely comeback as a rustic singer.
Lewis was born in 1935 right into a poor farming household in Ferriday, Louisiana. One in every of his cousins, Jimmy Swaggart, would go on to grow to be a preferred TV evangelist. Lewis’ web site says he started enjoying the piano at age 9, aping the types of preachers and Black musicians who handed by way of the area.
After dropping out of college to deal with enjoying music, Lewis traveled in 1956 to Solar Studios in Memphis, the place he shortly gained work as a session participant for such budding stars as Carl Perkins and Johnny Money. He additionally recorded with Elvis Presley.
A December 1956 recording session with Lewis, Presley, Perkins and Money – nicknamed the “Million Greenback Quartet” – turned a seminal second in rock historical past.
By the next 12 months, due to High 5 hits like “Nice Balls of Hearth,” Lewis was internationally well-known, although his incendiary fashion and suggestive lyrics led some radio stations to boycott his songs.
Then got here the wedding scandal, and Lewis’ aura was by no means fairly the identical.
After a decade of dwindling gross sales, he reinvented himself within the late Sixties as a rustic artist and revived his profession, scoring a sequence of High 10 nation hits effectively into the Seventies.
In 1989 “Nice Balls of Hearth!”, a biopic starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis, introduced new consideration to Lewis’ life and music. Lewis even recorded new variations of his hits for the soundtrack.
However his private life remained messy. He was married seven instances and filed for chapter in 1988, claiming he owed the IRS greater than $2 million.
He additionally battled alcoholism, drug habit and different well being issues for years. In a single notorious 1976 episode, he was arrested at Graceland within the wee hours of the morning after drunkenly crashing his automotive into the mansion’s gates – with a loaded gun – whereas attempting to go to Presley.
“I ain’t no goody goody, and I ain’t no phony,” Lewis stated in Bragg’s biography. “I by no means pretended to be something, and something I ever did, I did it wide-open as a case knife. I’ve lived my life to the fullest and I had fun doin’ it.”
In October, Lewis was inducted into Nation Music Corridor of Fame however was unable to attend the ceremony as a result of he was ailing with the flu, in line with an announcement posted to his social media.
Lewis was raised in a strict, spiritual family and typically struggled to reconcile his religion in God together with his love of rock ‘n’ roll, which conservative listeners within the Fifties condemned as “the satan’s music.”
He didn’t write many songs however was good at reinterpreting others’ compositions together with his infectious, boogie-woogie rhythms, which helped carry rockabilly music into the mainstream.
However his most enduring legacy could have been his unhinged piano-playing fashion, which influenced Elton John and lots of different musicians. Throughout live shows Lewis banged the keys together with his fists and elbows, kicked over his piano stool, climbed atop his instrument and as soon as even set it on fireplace.
On this approach, he confirmed that rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t simply in regards to the guitar.
In 1986, he joined a constellation of seminal figures – Berry, Presley, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fat Domino, Buddy Holly, Little Richard and the Everly Brothers – as the primary group of artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.
Lewis lived most of his life on a ranch in northern Mississippi with a piano-shaped swimming pool. He by no means fairly outran the scandal of marrying his younger cousin. However to his followers, his infectious music and his fiery reside exhibits made up for his private transgressions.
“I wish to be remembered as a rock-n-roll idol, in a go well with and tie or blue denims and a ragged shirt, it don’t matter, so long as the folks get that present. The present, that’s what counts. It covers up all the things,” he advised Bragg.
“Any unhealthy ideas anybody ever had about you goes away. ‘Is that the one which married that lady? Properly, overlook about it, let me hear that tune.’”
Lewis is survived by his spouse, Judith Coghlan Lewis, his kids Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Pheobe Lewis and Lori Lancaster, sister Linda Gail Lewis, cousin Swaggart and lots of grandchildren, nieces and nephews, in line with his consultant’s assertion.
Info on companies shall be introduced within the coming days, the assertion added.
In lieu of flowers, the Lewis household requested donations be made within the singer’s honor to the Arthritis Basis or MusiCares.
