pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy and ego collided on such definitive records as "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, died Friday morning at 87.
"There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door," a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis. Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness. Two of his many marriages ended in his wife’s early death. Brown herself divorced him in the early 1970s and would later allege physical and mental cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry eventually forgave him, long after he stopped having hits.
Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as "What’s Made Milwaukee Famous ", the roving eye confessions of "She Still Comes Around" and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye." He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, "Live at the Star Club, Hamburg," is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.
Another son by a previous marriage, Steve Allen Lewis, 3, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a traffic accident at 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori Leigh, and his survived by his wife Judith.His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service.
"Great Balls of Fire," a sexualized take on Biblical imagery that Lewis initially refused to record, and "Whole Lotta Shakin’" were his most enduring songs and performance pieces. Lewis had only a handful of other pop hits, including "High School Confidential" and "Breathless," but they were enough to ensure his place as a rock ‘n’ roll architect.
Same thing was reported a couple days ago and it was a fake report.
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