| Song Name - | "Great Balls of Fire" |
| Artist - | Jerry Lee Lewis |
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Jerry Lee Lewis grew up in Farriday, Louisiana, in a very conservative religious family; his cousin is the television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart. Lewis learned to play piano on an instrument that his parents literally mortgaged the farm to buy; such was the investment that he was forced to share lessons and practice time with Swaggart and another cousin, country music impresario Mickey Gilley. Lewis learned about boogie-woogie and the blues by listening at the back door of Haney's Big House, a roadhouse owned by his uncle that catered to an African American clientele. Combining these sounds with the classical and gospel music sanctioned by his parents, Lewis forged an idiosyncratic playing style. At age fifteen Lewis was enrolled in a Texas bible college studying to become preacher, but he was expelled for playing boogie-woogie versions of hymns on the church organ. He married and took a succession of menial jobs, but dreamed of becoming a professional musician. When his uncle offered him work at Haney's Big House, Lewis jumped at the chance, and had soon abandoned his young wife for late nights playing piano and tending bar. He also auditioned for nearly every record label in Nashville, and the Grand Ole Opry, with no success. One label that had not turned him down was Sun Records, as Sam Phillips had been on vacation when Lewis visited. When he returned Phillips approved of the demo recording Lewis had made at the studio, and invited him to record. He also started using Lewis as a studio pianist to back singers like Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Lewis's first Sun record, "Crazy Arms," sold well enough to get him a number of touring jobs. As a pianist Lewis was at a loss as to what he should do onstage; he couldn't very well dance (and wasn't good anyway) and emoting from the piano bench didn't seem very exciting. Eventually he adopted a flamboyant and percussive stage manner: he played standing up, jumped on the piano, pounded the keyboard with his feet, and did anything else that struck his fancy, so long as he wasn't far from the keyboard. Phillips liked what he saw, and became convinced that Jerry Lee Lewis had the same kind of star power as Elvis Presley. He threw most of his label's promotional budget behind Lewis's follow-up, "Great Balls of Fire," a gamble that paid off handsomely when the song reached number two on the pop charts. "The Killer" (as Lewis is often called) enjoyed a few more hits before his career was rocked by scandal. While in the process of divorcing his first wife, Lewis married and impregnated his thirteen-year-old cousin. Lewis was on tour in Britain when the news broke, and the English press was scandalized. The fervor eventually spread to the United States, and brought Lewis's career to a halt. He continued to perform wherever he could, and after a decade he was redeemed with a new recording contract and a hit single on the country charts. |
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"Breathless"
