Dear List, Here is a news item I came across that I found very interesting. I like many kinds of music and can appreciate many different styles and ways of playing the piano. I have long been a fan of Jerry Lee Lewis and have always enjoyed his recordings even though the early ones had out of tune pianos. I'd sure love the opportunity to tune for him and to stay and listen to his performance. <<Jerry Lee Lewis Is Still Rocking .c The Associated Press By JEFF SIMONS TESUQUE, N.M. (AP) - He's been demonized, ostracized and jeered out of a country. He's the pyromeister who once torched his baby grand for a grand finale. A rock 'n' roll wrecking machine who trashed pianos a decade before The Who turned onstage mayhem into trademark encores. The hell-raiser who racked up a half-dozen marriages and a 40-year roller coaster career of hit records, scandals, accolades and sordid tales of drugs, booze and guns. Jerry Lee Lewis is a living legend who keeps on cranking. Elton John has called him the ``greatest piano player ever.'' Bruce Springsteen says Lewis ``doesn't play rock 'n' roll, he is rock 'n' roll.'' ``I still like my style of rock 'n' roll, and I still love workin','' said Lewis, who has sold more than 25 million records. Fourteen years ago, he became one of the first musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He averages 50 shows a year. ``It's not about money. It never was about money. This is my life,'' he said. At a recent performance at the Camel Rock Casino, Lewis - backed up by The Jerry Lee Lewis All-Stars band - sent the packed house a message: At 64, he still has enough drive and adrenaline to deliver a fervent dose of Eisenhower-era chart-busters. On his classics ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'' and ``Great Balls of Fire,'' Lewis proved he could still wail like he did back when he dethroned Elvis Presley as the prima donna of Sun Records. He was the maestro of the eighty-eights, cascading across the keyboard, thumping down rolling bass lines and hammering out pulsating chord riffs on vintage covers ``Lucille'' and ``Roll Over Beethoven.'' ``He's one of the keyboard rock 'n' roll legends,'' said Lawrence Scucci of Santa Fe, one of the 1,300 fans who turned out for the show. ``I've been a fan of his for years. In a lot of ways, to see him up front as he was in the '50s and '60s is unbelievable.'' Lewis, born in Ferriday, La., on Sept. 29, 1935, got his first musical influences from swing, R&B, Delta blues, Jimmie Rodgers and Carl McVoye, a cousin who popularized the song ``You Are My Sunshine.'' His cousins figured prominently in his career: There was alter ego Jimmy Swaggart, a piano prodigy-turned-evangelist who chastised Lewis for taking up what was often called the ``devil's music''; Mickey Gilley, who became a successful country artist; J.W. Brown, his bass player, who backed up Lewis when he first exploded onto the charts; and Myra Gale, Brown's daughter and Lewis' third wife, who scuttled his 1958 British tour after three gigs when the press leaked her age - she was 13 - and audiences booed him off the stage. ``My daddy's broken a lot of rules and taken a lot of heat over the years,'' said Phoebe Lewis, 36, his daughter and manager, who lives with her father in Nesbit, Miss. ``But he lives for his music and his fans. He's an institution.'' Leaning back in his chair a few minutes before his performance, Lewis - wearing a white polo shirt, black pants and spit-shined cowboy boots - took a draw off his pipe and reflected on the early dissenters who slammed his music. ``It's the nature of the people,'' he said. ``Rock 'n' roll came on so strong, that after listening to the likes of Perry Como, it scared the socks off them.'' Lewis cut ``End of the Road,'' his first track, in November 1956. The following year was his golden year. ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'' quickly soared into the Top 40 country and R&B charts and hung on for 20 weeks. ``Great Balls of Fire,'' written by Otis Blackwell, rocketed into the Top 10 on the pop, country and R&B charts. It became the best-selling record in Sun Records' history. In 1961, Lewis scored his last rock 'n' roll Top 40 hit - a remake of Ray Charles' ``What'd I Say.'' After that, he began shifting to country and western. Between 1968 and 1972 - a period when rock 'n' roll was being redefined by British and San Francisco-based bands - Lewis chalked up 15 C&W hits. ``To Make Love Sweeter for You,'' ``There Must Be More to Love Than This,'' ``Would You Take Another Chance on Me'' and ``Chantilly Lace'' reached the No. 1 spot on the charts. In 1973, Lewis shifted back to rock 'n' roll and put together ``The Session,'' accompanied by Peter Frampton and Alvin Lee. That same year, his 19-year-old son Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. died in an auto crash. A few years later, Lewis accidentally shot his bass player, who survived and eventually sued. In 1976, he was arrested for brandishing a gun outside Presley's Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn. Two years after that, he was immersed in a series of lawsuits with Elektra Records. His fourth wife drowned in a swimming pool in 1982. His fifth wife died at his home from a drug overdose a year later. During that same period, Lewis came under scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service and grappled with drug problems and ulcers. In 1989, Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder starred in ``Great Balls of Fire,'' a film based on Lewis' life and directed by Jim McBride. ``It was supposed to be based on my mother's book,'' said Ms. Lewis, referring to Myra Gale Lewis. ``My mother and I were excited about going to see it, but when we came out, we felt like we'd been kicked in the stomach. ``I think the director was an idiot. One minute it's a drama, the next a comedy, the next a musical. They took an incredible story and turned it into a half-assed, Hollywood middle-of-the-road blase, gutless, vanilla movie.'' In 1995, Lewis recorded the rock album ``Young Blood.'' And backed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, he performed ``Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'' and ``Great Balls of Fire'' at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. For his show at the Camel Rock Casino, Lewis put together a crowd-pleasing blend of ballads, country, rock and pop, including the standards ``Georgia,'' ``Somewhere Over the Rainbow'' and ``She Even Woke Me up to Say Goodbye'' and hits by Hank Williams and Chuck Berry. ``If he isn't the essence of rock 'n' roll, who is?'' asked Greg Johnston, who was in the audience for the Camel Rock show. The answer might be Elvis Presley. But that doesn't seem to bother Lewis. ``I'd have walked 300 miles to see Elvis perform,'' Lewis said. ``But you know what? When I put my first record out, he came to see me.'' On the Net: The Web site for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://www.rockhall.com The Jerry Lee Lewis Web site: http://www.jerryleelewis.net/discography.htm>>
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