One of America’s most dynamic piano players and performers,
Jerry Lee Lewis is a rock and roll pioneer known for his vast musical talent and incredible influence on artists who came after him. Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology #242 on their list of "500 greatest albums of all time". In 2004, they ranked him #24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Born September 29, 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana, Lewis showed a natural talent at the
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piano. His parents, though poor, took out a loan to buy him a piano, and within a year he had developed his mature style of playing. He was, like
Elvis Presley, brought up singing the
Christian gospel music of the southern Pentecostal churches. Like Presley, Lewis left church music for the new secular sound that was emerging in the early 1950s. In 1956, he joined the
King at
Sun Studios. His first recordings for Sun included such signature
Jerry Lee Lewis songs as “Crazy Arms,” and later, “A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” He would reach international super-stardom with “Great Balls of Fire,” soon after.
Lewis’ personal life was always turbulent but kept from the public until a tour of Britain in 1958 when the press learned the 23-year-old star was with his third wife,
Myra Gale
Brown, who was also his 13-year-old cousin. The situation caused a public uproar and the tour was cancelled after only three concerts. A string of misfortunes and tragedies followed, including the deaths of Lewis’ two sons and Lewis’ own problems with alcohol and he would never reclaim his earlier fame, though Lewis continued to pump out great performances on the piano and a string of country hits. In 1989, a motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll titled Great Balls of Fire brought him back into the public eye. The film was based on the book by Lewis' ex-wife Myra and starred Dennis Quaid as Lewis, with Winona Ryder, and Alec Baldwin. Despite Lewis’ personal problems, his musical talent is unquestioned. Nicknamed The Killer for his forceful voice and piano production on stage, he was described by fellow artist
Roy Orbison as the best raw performer in the history of rock music.
