Latest Release
- 4 OCT 2024
- 13 Songs
- Jerry Lee's Greatest! · 1957
- Great Balls of Fire! (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) · 1989
- Jerry Lee Lewis · 1958
- The (Complete) Session Recorded In London with Great Guest Artists · 2006
- The Golden Rock Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis · 1964
- Greatest Hits: Finest Performances · 1957
- The (Complete) Session Recorded In London with Great Guest Artists · 2006
- Greatest Hits: Finest Performances · 1958
- Jerry Lee Lewis · 1956
Essential Albums
- Lewis’ second—and final—album for Sun Records notably includes “Great Balls of Fire”, his career-making smash from four years earlier. But there’s plenty of other worthy material where that came from, like the romping rockabilly manifesto “Hillbilly Music” and the melodramatic murder yarn “Frankie and Johnny”. For all his tendency towards scenery-chewing flamboyance, the piano man proves restrained and sincere when tipping his hat to his heroes, covering songs by Hank Williams (“Cold, Cold Heart”) and Fats Domino (“Hello Josephine”) with obvious reverence.
- With his rowdy yelp and hard-hitting piano, Jerry Lee Lewis pioneered the anarchic rock 'n' roll spirit, and this early release perfectly encapsulates his crazed energy and carefree attitude. Jerry Lee Lewis is packed with all-night stompers like "Put Me Down" and "Matchbox", as well as rockabilly mainstays like "Don't Be Cruel". But the album still showcases The Killer's sweet, sentimental side with forlorn ballads like "It All Depends (On Who Will Buy the Wine)" and the downcast, country-style weeper "Fools Like Me".
- 2011
Artist Playlists
- You haven’t seen rock at its wildest until you’ve met “The Killer”.
Live Albums
More To Hear
- A special packed with '50s and ‘60s tunes.
About Jerry Lee Lewis
Singer and pianist Jerry Lee Lewis channelled the sanctity of gospel and the seduction of the blues into some of early rock ’n’ roll’s most joyfully furious singles. A former divinity student born in Louisiana in 1935, he brought the ecstasy of church music to pounding rockers like 1957’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On," kicking loose his piano stool with the gleeful savagery of any future guitar-destroying punk (he was known to his rockabilly peers as The Killer). And his attempts to outdo the audacity of his hero-turned-rival Little Richard inflamed a secular audience primed for a new brand of wildness. (His proud embrace of African American music thrilled in a repressively segregated era.) Lewis’ career was sidelined by one of rock’s first headline-worthy scandals when he married his 13-year-old cousin in 1957—though by then he’d already managed to uncork the pent-up sexuality of an entire generation with songs like “Great Balls of Fire". He eventually found humility (if not gentility) as a revered country-music storyteller, sketching deeply human characters, like the broken man confronting his alcohol-fuelled regrets in 1968’s “What's Made Milwaukee Famous”, with all the passion of his rock hits. He died in October 2022 at the age of 87.
- FROM
- Ferriday, LA, United States
- BORN
- 29 September 1935
- GENRE
- Rock