"He went over to Elvis and said 'I didn’t know you could play.'
Elvis responded 'I can’t,' at which point Jerry Lee said, 'Well then, why don’t you let me sit down?'
Elvis just replied 'Well, I’d like to try,' and carried on noodling.... [T]he majority of the [Million Dollar Quartet session] consists of Elvis on acoustic guitar or piano, Jerry Lee on piano when Elvis isn’t playing it, and them all singing together, with Elvis or Jerry Lee taking most of the lead vocals.... Both Elvis and Jerry Lee were brought up in the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal 'holy roller' church.... ['Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley'] is interesting, as even though it’s a call-and-response song and starts with Elvis taking the lead and Jerry Lee doing the responses, by the first verse Jerry Lee has already taken over the lead and left Elvis echoing him, rather than vice versa. You can hear there exactly how this friendly rivalry was already working. Remember, at this time, Jerry Lee Lewis was nobody at all, someone who had one single out which had been out a matter of days. But here he is duetting with the 'King of Rock and Roll,' and seeing himself as the person who should naturally be taking the lead."
Here's full recording of the session on Spotify.
You can listen to the recording of "Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley" on YouTube
here.
And here's a link to
the Wikipedia page for Lewis, where I went because I wanted to check my belief that he's still alive. He is. But I also saw: "On November 22, 1976, Lewis was arrested outside Elvis Presley's Graceland home for allegedly intending to shoot him... 'Elvis, watching on the closed-circuit television, told guards to call the police... The cops asked Elvis, "What do you want us to do?" And Elvis told 'em, "Lock him up." That hurt my feelings.'" Elvis avoided death that night, but proceeded to die on his own, 8 months later.
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25 comments:
Always good to get you going..... Jerry Lee At the Star Club....
https://youtu.be/lQfUeLUgjFA
"From "Episode 51: 'Matchbox' by Carl Perkins" in Andrew Hickey's phenomenal podcast 'A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.'"
Nothing compares Chapter #922, Neil Young.
"A fan remembers..."
An amusing mid-1970s National Lampoon parody.
i wonder if he'll mention the interaction, between Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry?
At one point, the two were on the same bill. One had to go first; and since Chuck Berry had sold about eleventy-Zillion albums, Chuck got to be the closer.
This Offended Jerry Lee, who had sold a few records himself. When Jerry went out, he brought a pop bottle, filled with some gasoline with. At the end of his set, he poured the gas onto his piano, and set it on fire....
As he walked past Chuck Berry; he said: "Top That, *****."
***** our Professor will lose her advertising contracts, if we use that word. Which is too bad, 'cause ***** makes it sound like it was 'just' a naughty word. It was a fighting word, a word that Many people have died over; a word that people won't realize just How Bad it was, if they don't see it. Ignorance is Bliss.
You have linked to great podcasts before, like "The Beatles Naked". I wish you would consider adding a "podcast" tag.
I heard Elvis explained "How hard can it be to play the piano."
Old Jerry Lee had high regards for himself. As a rock and roll piano player he was a prodigy so maybe he had cause.
Of all of the old guard it's pretty funny that he's still alive...I can't even imagine some of the things he must have done in that kind of life.
I met him once (another of my hotel stories)...I am surprised to calculate his age at the time as only mid-40s...he seemed older, but in fairness I was a lot younger.
He was nice and polite. All I could think about was his nickname 'The Killer' and the fact that he'd married his 13-year-old cousin.
But he could play the hell out of a piano. That is an undeniable fact.
Saw Jerry Lee in KC in ~1980. He could still kick it. The Killer!
Not to pick nits here, but he did not die on his own, he died on his toilet. Lots of drug abuse had the side effect of severe constipation, and it is presumed that he died while straining to defecate. Or, in the parlance of The Sopranos, he "blew a gasket on the crapper".
I agree that it's a great podcast. I'm only 15 episodes in but am knocked out by it. I have been over a lot of this material before, but I am learning a ton and it's fun. Hickey is clearly a guy of deep learning in historical popular music, and he finds great anecdotes.
Two caveats:
The accent. Andrew Hickey has a distinct Mancunian accent which is almost distracting. It takes some getting used to. Fortunately, he speaks slowly and enunciates everything, so you won't miss a word, but you might say "who the hell would pronounce it that way?"
The CRT cod liver oil. In most episodes Hickey finds an excuse to point out the following observations that may not have occurred to you knuckle-dragging listeners. Racism is bad. Sexism is bad. Not paying agreed royalty payments to artists is bad. Wife beaters are bad people. The USA was horrifically, apocalyptically racist in the 20th century, and while this are slightly better now, the world is still full of evil racist people. He is compelled to state his extreme disapproval of typical music industry misbehavior with disappointing regularity. (As it turns out, most civilized people agree with you Andrew. Ike Turner was an asshole. But that doesn't mean the songs aren't great.)
Even with the regular virtue signaling, it's very much worth your time. I assume Hickey is an academic, which would explain both the deep learning, and the sacred ritual of condemning Emmanuel Goldstein.
LOL! I checked out Lewis a few months ago for the same reason- to confirm my belief that he was still alive.
"Top That, *****."
If Chuck Berry got a dollar for every time he heard that word directed at him in the '50s and '60s he would have been immensely richer than he already was : )
When Jerry Lee tried to crash the front gate of Graceland armed and drunk I believe Elvis told him through the security monitor to “go around back with the rest of the trash.”
I'm really enjoying that podcast (though I just got to the first mention of Elvis - around the time Fats Domino is becoming the first rock star)! Thanks for the recommendation.
My wife and kids were with me on a business trip to Portland in the early 80s. When we got to town we saw the Jerry Lee Lewis was scheduled to give a concert that night--naturally the four of us rushed to buy tickets. Just as naturally Jerry Lee pulled a George "No Show" Jones stunt and failed to appear. But I do love the man's music.
Jerry Lee and Jimmy Swaggart are first cousins. A musical family that have had their brush with sexual trangressions.
OTOH, Elvis ran like a girl.
I didn't know Elvis was Pentecostal, but it makes sense that he was. I think a lot of singers started singing in church.
You have to add Mickey Gilley to the Lewis family singing clan. There was an interesting biography of Jerry Lee Lewis a few years back. I think that Rick Bragg was the author--but I could be mistaken. Apparently Lewis never had piano lessons--he learned to play on his own. I'm also not certain that Jerry Lee can read music.
'I'm also not certain that Jerry Lee can read music.'
Buddy Rich never learned to read music and he did OK...
Lots of popular musicians can't read music, as far as I know. People were making music before notation was a thing, and will make music without it.
Some friends of mine here used to go to the Rev Al Green's church just for the music.
That seems crass and tasteless to me, so I never went along.
Loving that podcast, thanks!
Hickey has some interesting blogs besides the podcast, and he’s been at it almost as long as Althouse. He makes a pretty good case that Elvis was on the spectrum, where Hickey also finds himself.
Jerry Lee and Keith Richards are the last rock n'roll outlaws. And, next to Jerry Lee, Keith is a stand up member of society.
I always thought Lewis was an untreated bipolar, from the first films I saw of him (after having worked with bipolars for the decade before that).
Blogger Joe Smith said...
'I'm also not certain that Jerry Lee can read music.'
Buddy Rich never learned to read music and he did OK...
John Lennon and Paul McCartney couldn’t read music, either. They came up with the songs on either piano or guitar while recording the songs on a tape recorder and someone else wrote the notes down listening to the recording. They did ok as well.
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