Lewis was known for his energetic stage performances, which included antics such as playing the piano with his feet and lighting the instrument on fire.
Jerry Lee Lewis, the early rock n’ roll star who skyrocketed to fame with a string of hits in the 1950s, had died, his publicist confirmed to CBS News. He was 87.
The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at home in Memphis, Tennessee, representative Zach Farnum said in a release. His death had been erroneously reported earlier in the week by the celebrity news site TMZ.
“Lewis, perhaps the last true, great icon of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, whose marriage of blues, gospel, country, honky-tonk and raw, pounding stage performances so threatened a young Elvis Presley that it made him cry, has died,” said the statement released Friday. It said he died at home in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis, with his wife, Judith, by his side.
Nicknamed “The Killer,” Lewis was known for his energetic stage performances, which included antics such as playing the piano with his feet and lighting the instrument on fire.
Lewis scored a major hit in 1957 with his rendition of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” He followed that up in the same year with “Great Balls of Fire,” which reached number 2 on the Billboard charts. The song lent its title to the 1989 biopic, starring Dennis Quad as Lewis.
Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his leering tenor and demanding asides, violent tempos and brash glissandi, cocky sneer and crazy blond hair. He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.
But in his private life, he raged in ways that might have ended his career today — and nearly did back then.
For a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was canceled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.
“I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”
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.
“If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.
