This morning's song is one that releases the fire in all rock and roll souls, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On". The song was first recorded by Big Maybelle, though the best-known version is the 1957 rock and roll/rockabilly version by Jerry Lee Lewis. I just love this man's vitality and sheer magical fingers on that piano. He unlocks those piano keys with the magic wand of a rockabilly magician on high. If ever there was any music that had its foundation in ‘Gospel’ but ended up in the fires of hell, it would be the music of Jerry Lee Lewis.
Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935) is an American singer who was often known by his nickname, 'The Killer'. The most controversial of rock and roll singers ever to visit England from America, he has been described as 'Rock & Roll's first great wild man.' Unconventional in every aspect of his life, as part of his stage act, Lewis pounded the keys with his heel, kicked the piano bench aside and played standing, raking his hands up and down the keyboard for dramatic effect, sat on the keyboard and even stood on top of the instrument. Lewis told the Pop Chronicles that kicking over the bench originally happened by accident, but when it got a favourable response, he kept it in the act'.
The story goes that during the fifties, the Killer, who never opens for anybody, was angry because he was made to go on before Chuck Berry. Never seeing himself as any performer who took second place on any billing, he climaxed a scorching performance on stage by setting the piano he was playing ablaze in the middle of his performance of ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and pounding the keys while it flamed. It burned to the ground. As Jerry Lee walked off stage and he saw Chuck Berry waiting in the wings to go on stage as the top act, Jerry turned to Chuck Berry and allegedly said, “Follow that, Cat, if you can!”
Lewis's turbulent personal life was hidden from the public until Ray Berry, a news agency reporter at London's Heathrow Airport in May1958 (the only journalist present), learned about Lewis's third wife, Myra Gale Brown .and publicly confronted Jerry. She was Lewis's first cousin once removed, and was only 13 years old, even though Brown, Lewis, and his management all insisted that she was 15. The publicity caused an uproar, and the tour was cancelled after only three concerts. Despite his lax morals, or perhaps because of them, Jerry Lee's music was said by some critics to have been born in the bowels of hell and the fires of damnation.
Love and peace.
Bill xxx