Lewis passed away from natural causes at his home in Desoto County, Mississippi, with his wife, Judith, by his side, his publicist said. The musician had been ill in recent years and suffered a stroke in 2019.
Like Chuck Berry’s guitar, Lewis’ piano was essential in shaping rock ‘n’ roll in the mid-1950s. He was part of the dazzling Sun Records talent pool in Memphis, Tennessee, that included Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. Lewis outlived them all.
Lewis, also known by the nickname “The Killer”, was one of the first performers inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and was so influential that when John Lennon met him backstage at a show in Los Angeles, the Beatle dropped to his knees and kissed Lewis’ feet.
Lewis filled his albums not only with ground-breaking rock but with gospel, country and rhythm and blues such as “Me and Bobby McGee” and “To Make Love Sweeter for You” as he endured a life often filled with alcohol, drugs and tragedy. His music was sometimes overshadowed by scandals – including his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin Myra in 1957.
In his prime, he performed with daring, originality and a lewd wild-man stage demeanor that thrilled his young fans as much as it agitated their parents. Typically, Lewis would kick away his piano bench and bang the keyboard with his foot while his long wavy blond hair flopped in his face.
According to legend, Lewis was once so upset that Chuck Berry had been chosen to close a show over him that he finished his set with a move that was hard to top – setting the piano on fire and walking off.
“I’m a rompin’, stompin’, piano-playing son of a bitch,” Lewis once told Time magazine in his Louisiana drawl. “A mean son of a bitch. But a great son of a bitch.”
Eight interesting facts about rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis:
- Lewis grew up with his cousins, future country singer Mickey Gilley and evangelist-to-be Jimmy Swaggart, in Ferriday, Louisiana, where Lewis made his performing debut at age 14, singing “Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” at the opening of an auto dealership in 1949.
- Lewis’s father, Elmo, went to prison twice for bootlegging.
- As a boy, Lewis developed his love of boogie-woogie and blues by sneaking into a Ferriday nightclub that featured the era’s best blues musicians.
- Lewis was expelled after only three months at Southwestern Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas, reportedly after performing a rowdy version of “My God Is Real” at a church assembly.
- Myra Gale Brown, Lewis’ cousin and the daughter of his bass player at the time, was only 13 in 1957 when she married the singer, who was then 22. She claimed on the marriage license to be 20 and the controversy of their marriage brought Lewis’ career to a halt.
- Lewis ended up in jail in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1976 after he was found brandishing a pistol and demanding to see Elvis Presley outside Presley’s Graceland mansion. Earlier that year Lewis had accidentally shot his bass player.
- Rolling Stone magazine reported in 2006 that Lewis still owned the Starck upright piano that his father bought for him in 1945 after mortgaging the family home to pay for it.
- Lewis’s career got a boost in 1989 when he sang his songs for the movie “Great Balls of Fire!” in which Dennis Quaid portrayed him while Winona Ryder played Myra.
