Jerry Lee Lewis, the untamable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy and ego collided on such definitive records as Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, passed away on the morning of October 28 at the age of 87, stated media sources. The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Jerry took his last breath at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis, Tennessee, his representative Zach Farnum said in a release.
The son of one-time bootlegger Elmo Lewis and the cousin of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley, Jerry was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. As a boy, he first learned to play the guitar but found the instrument too confining and longed for an instrument that only the rich people in his town could afford — a piano. His life changed when his father pulled up in his truck one day and presented him with a dark wood, upright piano.
Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre's attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself ‘The Killer’. Sources added that for a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Elvis as rock’s prime hitmaker after Elvis was drafted into the army. But while Jerry toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, who was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was cancelled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.
In 1986, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and others, he made the inaugural class of inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and joined the Country Hall of Fame too that year. He not only outlasted his contemporaries but saw his life and music periodically reintroduced to younger fans, including the 1989 biopic, Great Balls of Fire, starring Dennis Quaid, and Ethan Coen’s 2022 documentary Trouble in Mind.
He won a Grammy in 1987 as part of an interview album that was cited for best-spoken word recording, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005. The following year, Whole Lotta Shakin was selected for the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, whose board praised the “propulsive boogie piano that was perfectly complemented by the drive of J.M. Van Eaton’s energetic drumming. The listeners to the recording, like Lewis himself, had a hard time remaining seated during the performance.”
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