Jerry Lee Lewis

Overview

Elvis Presley’s early recordings for Sun Records were in a musical style that was called rockabilly, which was a mixture of rhythm and blues, country and western, honky tonk, boogie woogie, and gospel music. When Elvis made the move to RCA, other recordings artists continued making records in this rockabilly style. Artists such as Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Eddie Cochran all made names for themselves as rockabilly artists.

Objectives

Examine the defining musical characteristics of rockabilly and consider how artists combined different genres of music to create a new style
Examine the shift in rock and roll that occurred at the end of the 1950s, often marked by "The Day the Music Died"
Identify various rockabilly music artists and defining characteristics of their musical styles

Jerry Lee Lewis

In 1957, the latest star of Sun Records exploded on the scene in the form of Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis was a fiery performer who had been raised in the southern gospel tradition (his cousin is the evangelical minister Jimmy Swaggart). Nicknamed "The Killer" for both his frenzied piano style and his purported romantic successes, Lewis quit high school after failing 29 classes. He then was expelled from a bible school for playing a boogie-woogie rendition of "My God is Real," which the administration considered to be the devil’s music. Lewis moved to Memphis and began working as a session musician at Sun Records, playing piano in recordings for artists such as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.

Before Lewis, the rockabilly recordings at Sun rarely included a piano, but his energetic, boogie-woogie influenced style proved to be an influential addition to the sounds of rockabilly.

Performing live on The Steve Allen Show in 1957, Lewis transfixed audiences with his energetic performance that frequently bordered on manic. He pounded the piano, belted out the lyrics, and threw the piano bench across the stage. To the audience’s delight, Allen picked up the bench and threw it back to Lewis.

The song he performed on The Steve Allen Show, "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On ♫," is a quintessential example of Lewis’s rockabilly style. Lewis did not write the music or lyrics of this song, which was the case with most of his music. "Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On ♫" is certainly a rhythm and blues song in origin, and it is co-credited to Dave "Curlee" Williams and Roy Hall. The first commercial recording was made in 1955 by Big Maybelle and was released on Okeh. The lyrics of Lewis’s 1957 cover version made no secret of the source of the "shaking" in the song’s title:

Now let’s get real low one time now
Shake baby shake
All you gotta do honey is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit
That’s what you gotta do, yeah
Oh babe, whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on

Lewis’s version also added energetic drumming, rhythmic propulsion from the boogie-woogie piano part, and suggestive spoken asides. The track charted on both the pop and rhythm and blues charts, despite Sam Phillips’s fears that the record was too risqué to succeed commercially. Lewis’s piano-based style ushered in a new style of rock and roll music, one that no longer required the lead singer to accompany himself on guitar.

Lewis’s performance style was perfect for live concerts and television: he practically danced while he played, and his hair, always perfectly coiffed at the start, shook its way loose during performances into a sweaty mop. Lewis was certainly not the first major showman among early rock and roll performers: Little Richard also had an explosive, piano-banging style with screamed and shouted lyrics. As a white performer, though, Lewis could reach a larger audience.

In less than a year, Lewis recorded three hits that crossed over on all three charts: "Great Balls of Fire ♫," "Breathless ♫," and "High School Confidential ♫."

Jerry Lee Lewis

Late in 1957, Sun Records released "Great Balls of Fire ♫," which was written by Otis Blackwell. Blackwell had provided Elvis with "Don’t Be Cruel ♫" and "All Shook Up ♫,"and he also wrote " Good Golly Miss Molly ♫" for Little Richard. Lewis was gaining momentum. His career screeched to an abrupt halt, however, when the media learned that he had married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown. Lewis was booed offstage during his live performances and blacklisted from radio play, leading him to take a hiatus from the public eye for several years.

“For me, rockabilly is very, very exciting music. It's electric and kind of wild, you know? It's 'make your hairs stand up on the back of your neck' kind of music.”

-Imelda May

“To me, rockabilly music paralleled punk's energy and feeling, but the players were much better.”

-Brian Setzer

"Johnny Cash was one of the first high-profile musical guests on Sesame Street, performing "Nasty Dan" on Season 5. A Cash-like monster named Ronnie Trash later appeared on the show to sing about the environment."

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