Jerry Lee Lewis dies at 87. The singer and pianist behind 'Great Balls of Fire' was rock’s prototypical wild man.
In his personal life, Mr. Lewis grew addicted to pills and alcohol and was bedeviled by tragedy. Mr. Lewis and Myra Gale Brown’s first son, Steve Allen Lewis , drowned in the family swimming pool at 3. Jerry Lee Lewis Jr., a son from his second marriage who was also the drummer in Mr. Lewis’s touring band, died in a car accident in 1973.
Raised as a Pentecostal, Mr. Lewis often expounded on biblical scriptures, salvation and a belief that performing rock-and-roll had marked him for eternal damnation. He initially refused to record the song “Great Balls of Fire” , one of his biggest hits, because he considered the title blasphemous.“I’m a sinner, I know it,” he told writer Nick Tosches in 1979. “Soon you and me are going to have to reckon with the chilling hands of death.
As a youngster, Jerry Lee Lewis hid behind the bar at Haney’s, an African-American juke joint, listening intently to blues and boogie-woogie. Other early musical influences included vaudevillian Al Jolson and country singers Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams — a trio of performers he referred to as the “three great song stylists.” Mr. Lewis later called himself the fourth.
Although Mr. Lewis’s first Sun single, a cover of the Ray Price country hit “Crazy Arms,” didn’t sell, he did tour Canada in support of Sun artists Perkins and Cash. Perkins advised the inexperienced pianist to “turn around so they can see you, make a fuss.”
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