Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, we are
wrestling with a paradox. A massive, loud, piano
-kicking paradox. We are talking about a man
who was synonymous with the birth of rock and
roll. A man nicknamed The Killer. But we're also
talking about a man who was... arguably more
tortured by the music he created than anyone
else, I mean, maybe in the history of the genre.
It's a fascinating tension, isn't it? Usually
when we talk about rock and roll rebels, we're
talking about people who, you know, they embraced
the rebellion. They wanted to tear down the system.
They were leaning into. They were leaning in
hard. They wanted to shock the parents. But the
subject of today's dive was a devout man. He
was genuinely deeply plagued by the fear. I mean,
the absolute theological conviction that his
own music was a one way ticket to hell. It's
heavy stuff. We are talking, of course, about
Jerry Lee Lewis. And I think what makes this
deep dive so compelling is just the sheer altitude
of the roller coaster. I mean, we're talking
about a figure who experienced arguably the highest
highs in music history. Instant worldwide fame,
challenging Elvis Presley for the crown, and
then the absolute lowest lows. Complete career
implosion. A scandal that would have ended anyone
else's career instantly. And tragedy that just
reads like a Greek myth. It's relentless. It
is a story of survival, really. I think that's
the core theme we found in the source material.
We're looking at a man who outlived his contemporaries,
outlived multiple wives, outlived his own reputation,
and then managed to rebuild it from scratch.
Not once, but twice. Exactly. And just to set
the stage for you listening, our source material
today is the comprehensive biography of Jerry
Lee Lewis. And we're pulling from historical
accounts, session logs, interviews, all of it.
Yeah, we've got a lot to get through. His music,
his seven marriages, his run -ins with the law,
which are legendary, and his multiple musical
reinventions. And our mission here is to move
a bit beyond just great balls of fire. We all
know the song. We all know the energy. But we
want to look at the survival instinct. This was
the last surviving member of the Million Dollar
Quartet. The last man standing. We want to understand
how he transitioned from being a total pariah
in the rock world to a legitimate country music
superstar. And we need to answer the question.
Was the chaos the fuel for the music or was the
music the only thing holding back the chaos?
That's the central question. And we have to talk
about the piano. We absolutely have to talk about
the piano. The kicking of the bench, the playing
with the feet, the raw, unfiltered nature of
it all. So let's unpack this. Let's start at
the very beginning. Where does a character like
Jerry Lee Lewis come from? Because sometimes
it feels like he just fell out of the sky, fully
formed, with a cigar in one hand and a glass
of whiskey in the other. Well, he didn't fall
from the sky, but you could say he rose from
the mud. To understand the man, you have to understand
the soil he grew up on. He was born in 1935 in
Faraday, Louisiana. Now, Faraday isn't a metropolis.
In the 30s, this was hard country. The source
material paints a very specific picture. An impoverished
farming family in eastern Louisiana. So, humble
beginnings. Is that fair to say? Humble is putting
it politely. This was subsistence farming. But
here is where it gets really interesting and
almost unbelievable. If you look at his family
tree, it's like a layout for a musical dynasty.
It's almost statistically impossible how much
talent was in this one extended family. He grew
up playing piano with two of his cousins. One
was Mickey Gilly. Wait, the Mickey Dilly, the
country star, urban cowboy Mickey Gilly? The
very same. The owner of Gilly's, the world's
biggest honky -tonk. Wow, okay. And the other
cousin? The other cousin, Jimmy Swagger. No way.
The televangelist. The I -have -sinned Jimmy
Swaggart. Yes. So imagine that living room for
a second. You have Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley,
and Jimmy Swaggart, all kids, all learning to
play piano together on the same beat -up instrument.
That is just wild. It's an incredible concentration
of charisma. You have the king of country nightclubs,
the king of televangelism, and the killer of
rock and roll. All sharing a piano bench. It
explains a lot about the showmanship, doesn't
it? Whether you're preaching to save souls or
playing rock and roll to, well, corrupt them,
you need to command an audience. You need that
fire. Precisely. They're two sides of the same
coin. The preaching style of the assembly of
God and the performance style of early rock and
roll. They share the same DNA. It's about ecstasy.
It's about being moved by the spirit. Okay. And
a family was dedicated to this talent. His parents,
Elmo and Mamie Lewis, they actually mortgaged
their farm to buy him a piano. That's a massive
gamble. We're talking about the 1940s. A mortgage
on a family farm for a musical instrument. That's
like Jack and the Beanstalk levels of rhythm.
It was. But they heard something. He had this
natural affinity. And his musical education was,
let's call it, eclectic. He was influenced by
an older cousin, Carl McFoy, who taught him some
of the basics. But the real spice, the thing
that made Jerry Lee different from the other
kids, came from Haney's Big House. What was Haney's
big house? That sounds like a cartoon location.
It was a black juke joint across the tracks.
Now remember, this is the segregated South. He
couldn't go in. It would have been socially unacceptable
and frankly dangerous for a young white kid to
just waltz into a black club. Right, of course.
But he would hide in the bushes outside. He would
just listen to the sounds coming out of the windows.
And what was he hearing? He was hearing the blues.
He was hearing rhythm and blues. He was hearing
a driving, sexual, rhythmic pulse that you just
didn't hear in the white country music or the
polite gospel of the time. That's where the flavor
came from. He took the white country gospel he
learned at home and just injected it with the
rhythm of the juke joint. So you've got the church
on one side of the tracks and the juke joint
on the other. That is the central tension of
his entire life, right there in the geography
of his childhood. And he started young. His first
public performance, his first ever gig, was on
November 19th, 1949. He was just a kid. 14 years
old. 14. He played with a country and western
band at a car dealership in Faraday. A car dealership,
that is. Oh. That's almost cinematic in its own
way. So American. It is. They opened the back
of a flatbed truck to use as a stage. But apparently,
he just stole the show. The highlight was a cover
of Drinkin' Wine, Spodeo D by Dick McGee. Wait,
wait. He's 14 years old and he's singing a drinking
song at a car dealership. Already leaning into
the killer persona, even if he didn't know it
yet. But this is where the conflict really kicks
in. His mother, Mary Maney Lewis, she was a devout
woman. She saw this talent, but she was terrified
of where it was leading. She saw the juke joint
in his playing. She did. She wanted him to use
that talent for the Lord. So she took drastic
action. She enrolled him in the Southwest Bible
Institute in Waxhia, Texas. To become a preacher
or a gospel singer? To sing evangelical songs
exclusively. That was the plan. Use the gift
for God. But Jerry Lee, well, he couldn't suppress
the boogie woogie. It was just in his hands.
This is the famous expulsion story, right? I
feel like every rock star has a kicked out of
school story. But this one feels different. It's
more profound. It is different because of the
context. He wasn't, you know, smoking in the
boys room. He was expelled from musical blasphemy.
He was at a church assembly, supposed to be playing
a hymn. The song was My God is Real. A standard
reverent hymn. Yes. But he didn't play it straight.
He played a boogie -woogie rendition of it. In
a Bible institute. He syncopated a hymn. Exactly.
He sped it up. He added that driving left -hand
rhythm. Perry Green, who was the student body
president at the time, said that the dean called
Jerry Lee into his office the very next morning
and expelled him immediately. Just for the rhythm.
Just for that. For playing worldly music. That
was the term they used. They told him he was
washing the Holy Spirit in the gutter. And this
moment is just crucial for you to understand.
This wasn't just the man trying to keep him down.
This established the battlefield inside his own
head. How so? Well, he respected these people.
He believed in their theology. So when they told
him this music is of the devil. He didn't think,
oh, you guys are just squares. No, he thought...
He thought, you might be right. He loved the
music, this driving, rhythmic, exciting sound.
But the very institutions he respected told him
it was sinful. That's the tragedy of it. He didn't
play it because he was some rebel who didn't
care about religion. He played it because he
couldn't help himself, but he carried the guilt
that he was doing something wrong every single
time he hit the keys. Exactly. He was sinning
with every note in his own mind. So... Kicked
out of Bible school, he goes back to the only
place that'll have him, the clubs. Right. Starts
playing in Faraday and Natchez, Mississippi.
He's soaking up the new rock and roll sound.
He actually cut a demo in New Orleans in 1952,
but nothing really happened with it. The real
turning point comes when he decides to make the
pilgrimage. To Memphis. To Memphis. To Sun Records.
To see The Wizard. Sam Phillips. The man who
found Elvis. The man who was building this whole
new world. It's November 1956. Lewis travels
to Sun Records. And I want to highlight the desperation
here. He didn't just hop on a bus. He and his
father gathered up all the eggs on their farm,
33 dozen eggs, and sold them to a local market
just to pay for the gas to get to Memphis. 33
dozen eggs. That is such a specific, granular
detail that it really paints the picture of their
poverty. He literally scraped the farm clean
to get a tank of gas. That's how desperate he
was. But here's the thing. After selling the
eggs and driving all that way, Sam Phillips wasn't
there. He was on vacation in Florida. Oh, wow.
So he drives all that way, sells all the family's
eggs. And the guy isn't even in the building.
He almost missed his shot entirely. He might
have. But the producer and engineer, Jack Clement,
was there. And Clement was skeptical. He told
Lewis, we really need another country singer.
But Lewis insisted on playing. He basically refused
to leave until he was heard. I love that, the
confidence. He recorded a version of Ray Price's
Crazy Arms. And what did Clement think? He was
impressed enough to play the tape for Sam Phillips
when he got back. And Phillips heard it. He heard
the distinctiveness in the piano. He said, get
that boy back in here. By December, he's recording
prolifically. And this leads us to one of the
most famous, almost mythological dates in music
history, December 4th, 1956. The Million Dollar
Quartet. I love this story because it sounds
like fan fiction, but it actually happened. It
sounds like a marketing gimmick that someone
came up with 40 years later, but it was a complete
accident. So paint the scene for us. Who is in
the room? How does this happen? Okay, so it's
a Tuesday. Carl Perkins, who had the massive
hit Blue Suede Shoes. is in the studio trying
to record some new tracks. He's struggling a
bit to find his next hit. Jerry Lee Lewis is
there, effectively as a hired gun, a session
musician playing piano for Perkins. He's a nobody
at this point. Nobody knows who he is. OK, so
Perkins is the star. Lewis is the help. Right.
And Johnny Cash is there. He had stopped by just
to listen, just to hang out. He was already a
star on the label. So you've got three heavy
hitters already in the room. And then the door
opens and in walks. Elvis Presley. Who is, I
mean, at this point, in late 56, Elvis is the
biggest thing on the planet. He's huge. He's
already left Sun Records for RCA. He's a movie
star. He just dropped by his old stomping grounds
for a social visit with a showgirl on his arm.
Wow. But you put four musicians of that caliber
in a room and instruments are going to get picked
up. They started an impromptu jam session. And
crucially, Sam Phillips had the presence of mind
to leave the tape running. Thank goodness for
that. What did they play? Was it all just rock
and roll hits? That's the fascinating part. And
this goes right back to our earlier point about
the Bible Institute. Yeah. Almost half the songs
they played were gospel. Really? Just a little
talk with Jesus, walk that lonesome valley. So
the Million Dollar Quartet, these icons of rock
rebellion, and they're sitting around singing
hymns. It was the common language they all spoke.
But the source notes, a really interesting dynamic
in the room that day. Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis
Presley knew all the words to the more ecstatic
Pentecostal numbers because they were both raised
in the assembly of God. Right. Johnny Cash and
Carl Perkins were Baptists. They were a bit more
reserved. They didn't know the shouting songs
as well. The theological divide right there in
the studio. Amazing. Lewis actually said later
that Cash and Perkins were deprived because they
didn't know the song. That is hilarious. Only
Jerry Lee Lewis, the absolute rookie in the room,
the session guy, would have the confidence to
call Johnny Cash deprived. It shows his personality.
He wasn't intimidated by Elvis. He wanted to
be Elvis. He wanted to beat Elvis. And 1957 gave
him the chance. That was the year he strapped
himself to a rocket ship. Whole lot of shaking
going on. It was a big Maybel cover. He took
a Rhythm and Blues song and just injected it
with nuclear energy. And then the big one, Great
Balls of Fire. These songs were massive. They
defined the era. They felt dangerous. Worldwide
fame. But also immediate backlash. We have to
remember the cultural climate of 1957. This wasn't
just pop music. This was viewed as a threat.
Radio stations boycotted the songs. Why? What
was so threatening? They were considered sinful.
They were too sexual. The breathing, the pacing,
the raw energy. It was just too much for mainstream
sensibilities. And here is where we get a window
into that internal conflict again. I read in
the notes that there is a recording of an argument
about this song. An actual recording. Yes. And
it is chilling to listen to. It's a literal recording
of a theological argument between Jerry Lee Lewis
and Sam Phillips during the session for Great
Balls of Fire. The tape was rolling. What are
they arguing about? Theology. Lewis initially
refused to record the song. He thought it was
blasphemous. The title, Great Balls of Fire,
is a biblical reference from the Book of Acts,
and using it for a lustful love song felt completely
wrong to him. Wow. He asked Sam Phillips, how
can the devil save souls? What are you talking
about? I have the devil in me. That is incredible.
He's standing on the brink of superstardom. He
has a monster hit record in his hands. And he's
arguing that he can't record it because he's
terrified of hellfire. And Sam Phillips, who
is a genius psychologist as much as a producer,
tries to talk him down. He tells him, you can
save souls by making people happy. You can use
your talent to lift people up. Phillips is trying
to give him a theological loophole to be a rock
star. Did Jerry Lee buy it? He recorded the song.
But I don't think he ever truly bought it. He
lived with that cognitive dissonance for his
entire life. But once that red light went on,
he unleashed. He brought a physicality to the
piano that no one had ever seen. Oh, the pumping
piano. He didn't just play it. He attacked it.
You have to visualize this. A piano is a stationary
instrument. You sit at it. It's polite. Jerry
Lee Lewis treated it like a wild animal he was
trying to wrestle to the ground. Yeah. He pounded
the keys with his heel. He played standing up.
He raked his hands up and down the keys in those
famous glissandos. Yeah. And of course, the bench
kick. Was that planned? Was it choreography?
He told the Pop Chronicles that the first time
he kicked the bench over, it was a total accident.
Yeah. He was just moving so violently that he
knocked it back. But the crowd went wild. They
loved the aggression of it. So we kept it. He
made it a signature move. If it works, it works.
And then came the Steve Allen Show. In July 1957,
that was the moment he demonstrated these moves
to a national television audience. Up until then,
people had mostly just heard him on the radio,
seeing him. It was a revelation. Right. Kub Koda
called him rock and roll's first great wild man.
Elvis shook his hips, but Jerry Lee looked like
he was going to burn the entire building down.
He was legitimately rivaling Elvis. In 1957,
it was a toss -up. Who is the king? Jerry Lee
was on top of the world. He was making thousands
of dollars a night. He was unstoppable. And then,
1958 happened. The crash. The fall from grace.
Let's talk about the UK tour, because this is
a cautionary tale for the ages. It's May 1958.
Louis arrives in London. He's ready to conquer
Europe. He brings his entourage. And crucially,
he brings his new wife. Now, usually bringing
your wife on tour isn't a PR disaster. Usually
not. But there was a reporter at Heathrow Airport
named Ray Barry. He was the only journalist there.
He sees a very young girl with Jerry Lee and
asks, who is this? And Jerry Lee being Jerry
Lee doesn't lie. He's not subtle. No. He says,
this is my wife, Myra. And Ray Barry starts digging.
And the revelations that came out of this were,
though they were career -ending, it was a trifecta
of scandal that the British press and then the
American press absolutely devoured. Let's break
down the facts that came out, one by one. Okay,
fact one. Myra Gale Brown was his cousin. His
first cousin once removed. Now, in the rural
South at the time, this wasn't unheard of, but
in London, in 1958, it was shocking. Okay, that's
strike one, a big one. Fact two. She was 13 years
old. 13. Lewis told the press she was 15. He
lied about her age. But the press found the birth
certificate. She was 13. He was 22. That is,
that's a hard stop for people. Even back then.
I think sometimes people assume, oh, it was the
50s. Things were different. But 22 and 13, that
was not acceptable. No. He was considered cradle
snatching. The British press called him a monster.
They called for him to be deported. The headlines
were brutal. And there was a third fact, right?
Just to add fuel to the fire. Fact three. He
hadn't finalized his divorce from his second
wife, Jane Mitchum, before marrying Myra. So
technically, he was a bigamist. So the trifecta.
Incest, pedophilia by modern standards, and bigamy
all at once. It caused an absolute uproar. He
tried to play his first concert and the audience
booed him off the stage. They threw things at
him. The tour was canceled after only three concerts.
He was basically chased out of the country. And
he probably thought, OK, the British -Europe
tie, I'll go back to America where they left
me. That's what you'd think, right? You'd think
so. But the news had crossed the Atlantic. When
he landed back in New York, the scandal was waiting
for him. The reception was ice cold, and the
industry reaction was swift and brutal. How brutal.
Radio playlists dropped him instantly. Dick Clark
dropped him from American bandstand. His fee
plummeted. What does that look like for an artist?
I mean, practically speaking, it looks like complete
financial ruin. He went from playing arenas and
making $10 ,000 a night, which is like $100 ,000
today, to playing dive bars and juke joints for
maybe $250 a night, if he was lucky. He went
from being Elvis' only real rival to a pariah
in a matter of weeks. The fall was that fast
and that hard. That is a staggering fall. Most
people would have quit. Most people would have
changed their name and become a plumber. Most
people would have. But Lewis had this grit, this
refusal to accept defeat. He entered what we
now call the wilderness years. His contract with
Sun ended in 1963, and he moved to Smash Records.
But nothing was working. Why not? He was trying
to record rock songs, but the world had moved
on. The Beatles had arrived. The British invasion
was happening. Jerry Lee Lewis looked like a
relic of a scandalous past. No one wanted to
touch him. So he's a relic of the 50s, disgraced,
playing small clubs where fights break out. It
sounds miserable. It was. But this period, this
desperate, angry period, produced one of the
most legendary albums in rock history. Live at
the Star Club, Hamburg, recorded in 1964. I've
heard about this. It's legendary for being raw.
Raw is an understatement. It is feral. It's unhinged.
Yeah. He was backed by a British band called
the Nashville Teens. And critics regard it as
one of the wildest, greatest live rock albums
ever recorded. Period. Why? What makes it so
special compared to his studio hits? It's the
aggression. I have to imagine. He's angry. He's
got nothing left to lose. He's playing to a crowd
in Hamburg, the same city where the Beatles cut
their teeth. And he just unleashes this torrent
of sound. The recording quality isn't pristine,
it's loud, it's distorted, but that adds to it.
It captures the energy. It does. Milo Miles,
writing for Rolling Stone, had the best description
of it. He said, it is not an album, it's a crime
scene. A crime scene. That is quite a review.
He said, Jerry Lee Lewis slaughters his rivals
in a 13 -song set that feels like one long convulsion.
That is so evocative. It sounds like he was trying
to destroy the piano and the audience simultaneously.
He was. If you listen to it, he plays the songs
faster than ever before. He's shouting, he's
badgering the audience between songs. It proved
that even if his fame was gone, his talent hadn't
diminished one bit. In fact, the anger might
have made it sharper. He was proving he was still
the killer. But critical acclaim for a live album
doesn't pay the bills if radio won't play you.
He needed a change, a real change in strategy.
Which brings us to the pivot, the great reinvention.
By 1968, He'd been in the wilderness for a decade.
A full decade. A promotions manager named Eddie
Kilroy pitched a radical idea. Yeah. Stop trying
to be a rock and roller. The world doesn't want
a 33 -year -old wild man anymore. Cut a pure
country record. Now, Lewis had country roots,
obviously. Crazy Arms was his first recording
at Sun. Right. But he was the killer. He was
the rock guy. Going country felt like a defeat
to him initially. It felt like admitting he was
old. that he'd lost. But he was broke. He was
broke, so he agreed. He recorded a song called
Another Place, Another Time. It shot to number
four on the country charts. It was a smash hit.
And suddenly, Jerry Lee Lewis was back. But he
was a different Jerry Lee Lewis. How so? What
was different about it? The voice changed. In
the 50s, he was shouting, great balls of fire.
It's all upper register, pure energy. In the
late 60s country records, he's crooning. He's
using this rich lower register baritone. He sounds
weary. He sounds like a man who's lived through
a scandal. Right. And the country audience loved
it. They love a redemption story, or at least
they love a tragedy they can dance to. Exactly.
And this wasn't just a one hit wonder situation.
This was a dynasty. Between 1968 and 1977, he
had 17 top 10 country hits. 17? Wow. Songs like
What's Made Milwaukee Famous has made a loser
out of me. Me and Bobby McGee to make love sweeter
for you. I love that title. What's Made Milwaukee
Famous has made a loser out of me. It's the quintessential
country drinking song. It is. And the production
was key. It wasn't that slick, polished Nashville
sound with the string sections and the background
choirs that was popular at the time. No, it was
grittier. It was what they called hard country.
What does hard country mean in this context?
It means sparse. Just a fiddle, a steel guitar,
and that piano front and center. It was called
hard not because it rocked, but because the emotions
were hard. Rick Bragg, his biographer, noted
that it was substantial music. It was heavy.
Critics started comparing him to George Jones
and Merle Haggard, the serious vocalists of country
music. So he proved he could be a serious vocalist,
not just a piano -smashing showman. He had a
second act that was arguably more successful,
at least chart -wise, than his first act. Statistically,
yes. He had way more hits as a country artist.
But the wild man was still in there. You can't
just turn that off. Yeah. And we have to talk
about his appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in
1973. The Opry. The mother church of country
music. Very strict, very traditional. They have
rules. They have lots of rules. And he had always
been ambivalent about Lewis. He didn't fit the
family values vibe. He was a drinker, a pill
popper, a scandalous figure. But he was having
so many hits, they had to book him. Now, usually
when you play the Opry, you get two songs. Maybe
eight minutes of stage time. They were in a tight
ship because it's a live radio broadcast. Commercial
breaks are sacred. I have a feeling Jerry Lee
didn't care about commercial breaks. He played
for 40 minutes. No way! On a live radio show.
He just kept going. He just hijacked the show.
The stage manager was frantically signaling him
to stop from the wings, and he just ignored them.
He played his new country hits, but then he said,
I'm the killer, and I'm going to play rock and
roll. And he blasted through a whole lot of shaking
and great balls of fire. Wow. He desecrated the
temple of country music with rock and roll. The
crowd went nuts. That is incredible. He couldn't
resist. And in a really touching moment amidst
all that rebellion, he invited Del Wood out on
stage to sing with him. She was an Opry member,
a piano player. She's the only person at the
Opry who had been nice to him when he was a teenager
trying to break in years before. That's a nice
bit of loyalty. But also a massive middle finger
to everyone else who snubbed him. I'm going to
do what I want, and I'm going to honor the one
person who is decent to me. It sums him up perfectly.
He demands respect. But while his career was
soaring again in the 70s, his personal life was,
well, turbulent, as putting it mildly. It was
a horror movie. Yeah, reading through the source
material, the list of tragedies is just relentless.
It stops being scandalous and starts being heartbreaking
and just dark. It really is. Yeah. We mentioned
he was married seven times, but the loss he endured
is hard to comprehend. Let's just list it. His
son, Steve Allen Lewis, drowned in a swimming
pool at age three. God, that alone, that breaks
a person. His other son, Jerry Lee Lewis Jr.,
played drums for him in his band. He died at
19 in a Jeep accident. So he loses two sons,
both of his sons. Both of them. Then his fourth
wife, Jaron Pate, drowned in a swimming pool
right before their divorce was finalized. His
fifth wife, Shawn Stevens, died of a methadone
overdose just 77 days after they got married.
It's like a curse. I mean, people started whispering
that, right? That the killer nickname was some
kind of curse. It certainly felt that way. There
was a cloud of death around him. And the divorce
from Myra Gale Brown, the cousin he married,
the one who caused the initial scandal, that
happened in 1970. And it was ugly. What came
out in the divorce? She cited adultery and, quote,
every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable.
She said she had been subject to a reign of terror.
So behind the hits, behind the comeback, there
was just this domestic chaos. And financial chaos.
The IRS came after him hard. He wasn't paying
his taxes. In 1979, they raided his home. They
seized his property for a tax debt of $274 ,000.
What did they take? Everything. They did his
cars, his motorcycles, his jewelry, his musical
instruments. They put a for sale sign on his
life. He eventually fought for bankruptcy in
1988 with $3 million in debt. And amid all this
chaos, the deaths, the divorce, the IRS. The
behavior becomes more erratic. The pill usage
amps up. And there are guns. Lots of guns. He
loved guns. And he was incredibly careless with
them. There was the incident in 1976 with his
bass player, Butch Owens. This is the one where
he shoots him? Accidentally. Lewis is in his
bedroom. He's holding a .357 Magnum. He decides
he wants to shoot a Coke bottle across the room.
In the bedroom. As a party trick. In the bedroom.
He fires. The bullet ricochets off the bottle
or the wall and hits his bassist, Butch Owens,
in the chest. Did he survive? Miraculously, yes.
Owens survived. But it just shows the level of
recklessness. He was living in a reality where
firing a magnum in a bedroom was a reasonable
activity. But the most famous incident, the one
that has become absolute folklore, is the trip
to Graceland. If you know one story about Jerry
Lee Lewis, it's this one. November 23, 1976.
This is the collision of the two kings. It's
legendary. Take us through it step by step because
the details matter so much. Okay, so the premise,
according to Lewis, was that Elvis had been calling
him. Elvis was reclusive by this point, locked
away in Graceland. But Lewis claimed Elvis wanted
him to come out to the house to talk. Okay, so
in his mind, he thinks he's invited. Lewis is
at a nightclub in Memphis called The Vapors.
He's drinking champagne. He's popping pills.
He's a mess. And someone gives him a gun, a Derringer.
As you do. Here's a gun, Jerry. Exactly. So at
3 a .m., he decides it's time to go see Elvis.
He gets in his Lincoln Continental. And he puts
the gun, a loaded pistol, on the dashboard. Why
on the dashboard? So he wouldn't be charged with
concealing it. In his mind, that was the legal
loophole. If it's visible, it's legal. Incredible
logic. He's a legal scholar. So he gets to the
famous musical gates of Graceland. He pulls up.
He has a bottle of champagne under his arm. He
tries to throw the bottle out the window. And
this is a detail I love because it shows how
out of it he was. The window was rolled up. Oh,
no. He smashed his own car window with a champagne
bottle. Glass everywhere. And then, frustrated,
he smashed the car into the Graceland gates.
He rams the gates of Graceland. He rams the gates.
The guards come out, obviously. Jerry Lee is
waving the gun, waving the champagne bottle,
yelling, Where is Elvis? Tell him the killer
is here. What happens next? Does Elvis come down?
Does he let him in? Elvis was watching the whole
thing on his CCTV monitors. He saw the entire
spectacle unfold. And this is the sad part, the
tragic part. Elvis didn't come down. He didn't
invite his old friend and rival in. What did
he do? He told the guards to call the police.
He reportedly said, lock him up. Wow. That must
have stung. It hurt Louis deeply. He later said,
to be scared of me was ridiculous. He felt betrayed.
He thought they were peers, brothers in arms
from the Sundays. But Elvis saw a maniac at the
gate. Right. The police arrived, found the gun,
and arrested Jerry Lee Lewis for carrying a pistol
and public drunkenness. And the mugshot from
that night is legendary. He looks strangely happy,
smirking. He looks defiant. But the coda to this
story is that Elvis died just nine months later.
They never spoke again. They never spoke again.
It's a tragic end to that relationship. The two
kings of rock and roll, one trapped behind a
gate, the other in handcuffs outside it. Both
prisoners of their own fame in different ways.
It really is Shakespearean. So we move into the
later years. You'd think with the bankruptcy,
the arrests, the health issues, he'd just fade
away. But he didn't. The survival instinct again.
It's incredible. In 1986. The Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame is established. And who is in the inaugural
class? Jerry Lee Lewis. Has to be. Along with
Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Architects.
He was undeniably one of them. And true to form,
at the ceremony, he started an unplanned jam
session. He couldn't help himself. He also had
that movie come out, Great Balls of Fire. 1989.
Dennis Quaid played him. It was a glossy Hollywood
biopic, but it did something really important
and reintroduced his music and his story to a
whole new generation. Right. And Lewis re -recorded
all his classic songs for the soundtrack because
he didn't trust Dennis Quaid to sing them properly.
Smart move. His versions are definitive. It brought
him back into the public eye in a big way. And
he kept recording. He didn't stop. Last Man Standing
came out in 2006. That title wasn't subtle. It
was accurate. By 2006, Carl Perkins was gone.
Johnny Cash was gone. Roy Orbison was gone. Elvis
was long gone. Jerry Lee was the last one left.
And the album was his best -selling release in
decades. Sold over a million copies. And who
was on it? It featured a who's who of rock elite
Springsteen, Jagger, Clapton, Neil Young, all
coming to pay the ring to play with the master.
It was basically the music world acknowledging
that he was the last connection to the Big Bang
of rock and roll. Exactly. And finally, after
years of being snubbed, he got into the Country
Music Hall of Fame, too. Just recently, right?
Very late in life. In 2022, just a few months
before he died. What was his reaction to that?
After being the wild man for so long, did he
care about the establishment honoring him? He
did. He was humble. He said he was overwhelmed.
And he said something really interesting. He
said his career taught him to be a good person
and treat people right. Which is an interesting
takeaway, given the life he led, given the shootings
and the scandals and the abuse allegations. It
is. Maybe it was a wish more than a summary.
Maybe it was what he hoped he had learned by
the end. He faced health issues at the end. He
suffered a major stroke in 2019, which finally
slowed him down. He couldn't play the piano the
same way anymore. And he passed away on October
28, 2022, in Nesbitt, Mississippi. He was 87
years old. Which, frankly, is a medical miracle
given his lifestyle. It defies all logic. I think
Keith Richards looks at Jerry Lee Lewis and says,
how did he do it? And in a moment of full circle
that you couldn't script, who officiated the
funeral? His cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist.
They started on that piano bench together as
impoverished kids in the 1940s. And Swaggart
was there at the very end to send him off. The
preacher and the killer finally reunited. Wow.
So let's try to synthesize all of this. We've
covered the hits, the scandals, the theology,
the tragedies. What is the legacy here? It's
massive. It's the awards for Grammys, Rock Hall
of Fame, Country Hall of Fame, Memphis Music
Hall of Fame. But it's more than the awards.
He was the bridge. He connected the sacred and
the profane. He took the energy of the gospel
tent and brought it into the bar room. He connected
country and rock in a way that was violent and
beautiful. And that quote from Robert Crisco
really sticks with me. His absolute confidence
in the face of the void make Jerry Lee the quintessential
rock and roller. Confidence in the face of the
void. That is powerful. It's the perfect description.
He stared into the void, whether it was poverty
or scandal or grief or his own genuine fear of
hell. And he didn't blink. He just played louder.
He kicked the bench over and kept on playing.
it raises a provocative thought for us to leave
you with we often romanticize the tortured artist
but when you look at a life this tumultuous the
guns the seven marriages the sheer chaos We have
to ask, was that chaos the fuel that made the
music so exciting? Did he need to be on the edge
to play like that? Or was the music the only
thing that kept the chaos from consuming him
entirely? Was he the killer because of the music?
Or did he need the music to survive being the
killer? That's something to chew on. And if you
haven't, go listen to Live at the Star Club.
Hear the crime scene for yourself. It is an education.
It's worth a listen. Absolutely. Thanks for diving
deep with us. We'll see you next time.