“One of the Most Talented Human Beings To Walk on God’s Earth”
According to Sam Phillips, discoverer of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, B.B. King, and Howlin’ Wolf, among many, many others, Jerry Lee Lewis was “the most talented man I ever worked with, black or white. One of the most talented human beings to walk on God’s earth.”
Also one of the most unfettered. The first time he heard him, Phillips declared, “‘Where in hell did this man come from?’ I mean, he played that piano with abandon.”
Jerry Lee Lewis was more than ready to agree. In his more than six decades in the entertainment industry, there has never been anyone who approached the music with greater exuberance, with more exhilaration or celebration of “the spirit,” whatever the decade, whatever the genre, whether he was singing gospel, blues, country, ragtime, pop, or an old number by Gene Autry, one of his earliest and most abiding heroes.
No one brought more panache to the music – but forget about panache (which was Jerry Lee Lewis’ stock in trade), there was no one who could convey more depth of feeling in his approach to a greater variety of songs than Jerry Lee. This was a man, after all, who when he first heard blues singers like Muddy Waters and Ray Charles and B.B. King as a young teenager in Ferriday, Louisiana, said, “It was like strolling through heaven. It was like it was giving birth to a new music that people needed to hear. Rock ‘n’ roll – that’s what it was. That’s what I was listening to. Even in church.”
The generosity and openness of his music-making is unmatched in the pages of the Great American Songbook. There was nothing that Jerry Lee could not sing, and sing well. And there was nothing that he would ever sing the same way twice, no matter how many times he had sung it before. Like so many of the greatest artists in any field, he believed to his core that you had to give yourself over to the music if it was ever going to be worth a shit. At the same time dedication to a life of the imagination requires an act of bravery, demands a show of self-confidence – in Jerry Lee’s case an extreme show of self-confidence – that in many instances might contradict the logic of both observation and experience.
That is the thrill of his music, a high-wire act from the start. But it was always art of the highest order, too, art which refused to accept definition or limitation, art of the greatest daring and profundity which at the same time never failed to delight. “There’s not one-millionth of an inch difference,” Sam Phillips said, “between the way Jerry Lee Lewis thinks about his music and the way Bach or Beethoven felt about theirs.”
Jerry Lee Lewis would certainly not have disclaimed the comparison. In fact, he might very well have thrown a little Bach or Beethoven into his repertoire, just to show that it was apt. But most likely he wouldn’t have seen the need. “Rock ‘n’ roll,” he once declared, “is the greatest music that’s ever been. Or ever will be. Whether it was taken from gospel roots or rhythm and blues or black roots or red roots or blue roots, rock ‘n’ roll was rock ‘n’ roll. You’re not gonna beat it. And if you do, then I really want to hear it!”
And listening to his music, who could deny the truth of that statement?
© Peter Guralnick