Biography

Jerry Lee Lewis was born into a poverty-stricken, rural area of Louisiana in 1935. He started playing piano while still a child, and surprised his parents when his performing preferences shifted from evangelical music to boogie woogie. Despite the local community’s concern that Jerry Lee had turned to the “devil’s music,” Lewis continued to play in clubs around Louisiana and Mississippi, embracing the new rock ’n’ roll sound that was sweeping the country.

In 1954, Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his first demo, and in the following year, he moved to Nashville to play some of the local clubs there. After encountering some frustrating rejections, Jerry Lee went to Memphis in 1956 to record a version of “Crazy Arms” and “End of the Road” for the purpose of a Sun Records audition, and subsequently he began working for the label as a session musician, playing with the likes of Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, who were already on the label.

In 1957, Jerry Lee Lewis’s own singles, such as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” began to receive attention from music industry professionals and listeners alike. Jerry Lee’s intense performances, which often included kicking away the piano bench and standing on top of the piano, began to attract plenty of interest, and his career began to take off. Between 1957 and 2006, Jerry Lee Lewis had twenty-two albums and forty-seven hit singles, fourteen of which reached the number one position on the charts. His five-decade long career has brought American music some of its most iconic hits, and Jerry Lee Lewis was honored as one of the earliest inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Jerry Lee Lewis did not exit the music scene suddenly or quietly, however. In 1998, he toured with Little Richard and Chuck Berry in Europe, and he released Last Man Standing well into the new millennium, in 2006. The release spawned a DVD by the same title, with live concert footage, was equally successful. In 2008, Lewis appeared at the Grammy Awards, performing “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Great Balls of Fire” alongside Little Richard and John Fogerty, and in the summer of that year he appeared on A Capital Fourth to perform similar medleys and hits. A European tour followed, and in 2009 Jerry Lee Lewis performed at Madison Square Garden in New York for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25^th Anniversary Concert.

Jerry Lee Lewis stands as one of the Top Fifty all-time country artists, and he’s still going strong. Mean Old Men, his most recent album release, arrived in 2010 and he has plans to continue to record, perform, and tour.