Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis, born in 1935 and out of Ferriday, played piano like he was trying to set it on fire, and they called him "The Killer" for good reason. His earliest sessions came in 1952, at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, and by 1956 he was cutting sides for Sun Records in Memphis. "Crazy Arms" sold well in the South, but it was "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" in 1957 that blew the doors off, followed by "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless" and "High School Confidential": pounding boogie piano, a sneer in the voice and a wildness that made even Elvis look polite.

It came apart fast. His rock and roll run stalled after he married Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old cousin, the scandal ate away at his popularity, and the early 1960s brought few hits. The shows only got wilder, though, and Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, from 1964, is still held up as one of the most ferocious live rock records ever made.

In 1968 he turned to country, and "Another Place, Another Time" opened a second act: through the late '60s and the 1970s he topped the country charts again and again with songs like "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Would You Take Another Chance on Me". The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame took him in with its first class in 1986, Hollywood told his story in Great Balls of Fire in 1989, and Last Man Standing, in 2006, became the best-selling record of his life. He died in 2022, the last survivor of the Million Dollar Quartet.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.