JERRY LEE'S BLUES

Jerry Lee has always had a magical ability to interpret every
style of music and he has also had a unique talent of turning
a song from any background into a great piece of blues music.
"Crazy arms",for example,a well-established C&W standard and
the song that started Jerry's long career in 1956,was revived
by Jerry Lee in 1965 - but this time around,the song got a
fullblown blues treatment."Funny how time slips away",written
by Nashville Jazz songwriter Willie Nelson,also got a similar
blues treatment.
Nelson moved from writing jazz,swing and Nashville country
in the '60s to become - inspired by Jerry Lee's blues-soaked
version of country - an outlaw country singer in the '70s and
'80s.He later moved back to the Sinatra songs of his youth and recorded many Sinatra-esque albums in the '90s.
But that's beside the point.However,it is interesting to
note that without Jerry Lee Lewis,Nelson,Waylon Jennings or
any of these 'outlaws' wouldn't have made it as big.Afterall,
Jerry Lee was and is the ultimate outlaw in country music.
Lewis has hit No.1 on the C&W charts with what's essentially
blues material.
Lewis' deep feeling for blues and blues interpreted country
comes from years of experience listening to, absorbing,
interpreting, singing and playing a wide variety of music in
a style soaked with the blues.
Just listen to Jerry Lee's early R&B & Blues covers: "Big
legged woman","Sick and tired","Honey hush","60 minute man",
"Long gone lonesome blues" (actually a country record,
originally,but most Lewis fans assume it's 'an old blues'),
"Crawdad blues",etc.Every one of them is bluesier than the original.Add to this such original
classics as "End of the road" & "Hello hello baby".
Unlike the early country songs of Elvis Presley,Lewis'
early material in that genre had as much blues in them as
his R&B & Blues recordings.
Jerry Lee tears through oldtime C&W standards like
"Silver threads among the gold","You are the only star
in my blue heaven","Old pal of yesterday" and "Carolina
sunshine girl" with pure blues feeling.
Even on pure country ballads like "It all depends" or
"Goodnight Irene",Lewis sung with blues feeling.That's
exactly what made him stand out as a country vocalist
later on when he hit big with such classics as "Another
place another time","Would you take another
chance" & "She even woke me up to say goodbye".You may
ask why are these songs not covered by many artists?One
simple reason - they are so hard to sing.Only Jerry Lee
can do these right.
Throughout the years,Jerry Lee has always made room
for many blues songs or blues interpreted songs in his repertoire.Such blues classics as "C.C Rider","Blues like midnight","Milk cow blues" & "Trouble in mind" get their
definitive performance from Lewis.Lewis is no rockabilly -
he's a bluesman (Just compare Warren Smith & Jerry Lee's
versions of "Ubangi stomp" & you'll see what I mean).
Country hits such as "39 and holding" & "Touching home"
are great examples of the difference between the post-Sun
country work of Jerry Lee and the post-Sun country work of
most of the Sun Rockabillies:
While most of the rockabillies recorded blues material
for a few years (and in most cases,rather unconvincingly
- with exceptions to that rule like Carl Perkins and Sonny
Burgess),their main styles was country music, Jerry Lee
was equally at home as a blues singer and as a country
singer.Like Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican before
him,Lewis recorded blues and country - among other
styles - equally well and in equal proportion.Most
rockabillies (with the exception of Elvis,who was never
a country artist as such and wasn't strictly a rockabilly)
were basically country.Jerry Lee was equally country
and blues.Elvis,too,was probably not a rockabilly
(his style always owed more to pop,ballad and R&B than
to C&W).But,Jerry Lee managed to be both a blues and
country singer without being a rockabilly.Rockabilly
was and is a lighthearted music which was rather
relaxed in comparison to the blues-based black rock'n'
roll of Piano Red,Professor Longhair and the like.Jerry
Lee & early Elvis were more akin to the black style
than to rockabilly.
Jerry Lee's music was never lighthearted (even on
lighthearted songs like "Bonnie B.","Don't be cruel" or
"Let's talk about us", Jerry Lee sings with great emotion)
so he was never a rockabilly.
In other words,the music of The Killer and that of Warren
Smith and the like are worlds apart.The C&W-pop twang of
Warren Smith's cover of the blues standard "Got love if you
want it" couldn't be further away from Jerry Lee's version
of another blues standard around the same time, "Matchbox blues".
The difference between the real blues and rockabilly is
clearly evident when you compare most of the other Sun
artists with Jerry Lee.Only Charlie Rich can compete with
Lewis as a white Sun blues singer; both artists would become
country artists,but in reality they were as much blues.Yet,Rich
& Lewis are conviently regarded as 'rockabillies'.Just listen
to Jerry Lee's versions of 'rockabilly' standards (of course
they were really old blues songs) like "Milk cow blues" and
"Mystery train" and you'll see there's no novelty messing
around here: Lewis treats them as serious blues songs - the
way he learned them himself at Haney's or elsewhere (not from
Eddie Cochran or Ricky Nelson records and the like).
Jerry Lee is the saviour of the oldtime blues and has the
spirit of invention that Blind Boy Fuller & Robert Johnson
(among many others) have had.Just listen to "Keep your hands
off of it","John Henry","Ramblin' Rose" or "I've been
twistin' ",and you'll see what the blues is meant to be.Take
a listen to "My pretty quadroon" & "When my blue moon turns
to gold again" and you'll see that country and blues are one
and the same thing when Jerry Lee wants them to be.
Listening to the alternate takes of many of Jerry Lee's famous
rockers show what Jerry Lee himself had in mind for the songs:
to be even wilder and bluesier than what we see released.Take
the alternate takes of "Whole lotta shakin' " & "Highschool
confidential" and you'll see they're far wilder than the
released versions.Even better examples are the following:
"Put me down": Sun released a rock 'n' roll version of this
original on Lewis' first album in 1958.However,a total blues
version was also recorded by Jerry Lee that's far superior
to the released version.This alternate take certainly is one
of Lewis' greatest early performances - but it was too bluesy
for even the '50s rock 'n' roll audience.
"Down the line": Likewise,Jerry Lee recorded a very
blues orientated version of this Roy Orbison R&B
composition that has also remained unreleased.
This was how Jerry Lee saw these songs; the released
versions were slightly tamed - but Jerry Lee wanted them to
sound as wild and as bluesy as possible but Sam Phillips
and Sun didn't.

Patrick Wall,
February, 1st/2nd, 1999.

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