JERRY LEE'S ALBUMS

JERRY LEE LEWIS ALBUMS:
-----------------------

CLASSIC:
--------
This 8 CD box set contains the best music from the rock 'n'
roll era.For those who think rock 'n' roll is just teenage
trash,this set will make you think again.Rock 'n' roll and
the blues are the same thing as far as Jerry Lee Lewis is
concerned.
Jerry Lee may not have had many rock 'n' roll hits and the
reason for this was the music was too pure and bluesy for
the pop charts.However,his 4 rock 'n' roll hits ("Great
balls of fire","Whole lotta shakin' ","Breathless" &
"Highschool confidential") were anthems and among the
best remembered hits from that era.
However,Lewis' greater work at Sun (the label he recorded
for in the rock 'n' roll era (i.e. 1956 to 1963) was not
the hits but the tracks that were not released at the
time.Lewis recorded hundreds of songs for Sun and encompassed
many diverse styles including blues ("Big legged woman","Hello
hello baby","Tomorrow night","Honey hush"),Hillbilly
blues ("Deep Elem blues"),Country ("You win again","I could
never be ashamed of you","Crazy arms"),country blues ("Ole
pal of yesterday","Silver threads among the gold),gospel
("Old time religion","When the saints go marching in"),
boogie ("Rockin' with Red","Lewis boogie"),Jump blues
("Let the good times roll"),rock 'n' roll ("Wild one",
"Lovin' up a storm") and R&B ("Good rockin' tonight",
"Hang up my rock 'n' roll shoes").No other artist of
that or any era convinced on such a diverse amount
of material both as a singer and a musician.

LIVE AT THE STAR CLUB:
----------------------
Quite possibly,Jerry Lee Lewis at his greatest.This
album showed the sanitized '60s music business what
rock 'n' roll should be all about.For Lewis,rock 'n'
roll meant the same thing as blues and the key was to
sing with feeling and say what you meant.
"Mean woman blues",the opener,was wild blues-shouting.
This made all other rock 'n' roll look tame.A furious
"Highschool confidential" follows.Next up was "Money,
a very bluesy version of the R&B song which he had
recorded at Sun in the early 1960s.Surely this was
engraved on the Beatles' minds forever,who later
cut it.
"Matchbox blues",the old Blind Lemon Jefferson
blues that was revived by both Lewis and Carl Perkins
at Sun,gets its definitive treatment from Lewis here.
Lewis learned this all those years ago at Haney's Big
House - and all the stylistics of the black bluesman
is ingrained in Lewis' style.
"What'd I say" & "Great balls of fire" are then given
a wild R&B treatment to please his old rock fans.Lewis
then decides to 'show up' some of his rivals,who we
know,they knew and Lewis himself knew couldn't compare
to him."Hound dog" was an old blues standard and was
covered and made famous by popstar/rock 'n' roller
Elvis Presley in 1956.Lewis' version here is wilder,
bluesier and far superior than any of its predecessors.
Little Richard's "Good Golly Miss Molly" & "Long tall
Sally" also are great improvements on the originals.
"Lewis boogie" & "Whole lotta shaking" are more
crowd pleasers and reveal the total wildness of this
set.
"Your cheating heart" is the only slow song from this
concert and is also one of the highlights.Jerry Lee
approaches the song as a tough blues (Hank Williams had
wrote and originated it as a bluesy song but it was
recorded in Nashville since as a country-pop track
by many ).This is pure Lewis invention and shows the
fine line he drew between country and blues.

LOCUST YEARS:
-------------
After "What'd I say" became a hit for Lewis in 1961,
Jerry Lee decided to concentrate more on the R&B side
of his music.His style during his Smash and early
Mercury years owed much to Ray Charles - but the
music produced during these years was no mere
Charles copy: This was Jerry Lee Lewis style music,
nothing else.
Lewis recorded many great blues anthems like "Got
you on my mind","Mathilda","I believe in you" &
"The hole he said he dig for me".All of these
deserved to be a lot more successful than they
were."It's a hang-up baby","Baby hold me close",
"I bet you're gonna like it","Just dropped in"
and many others was soul music equal to anything
else on the market during the soul era.
The only reason that Jerry Lee didn't make it as
the premier white R&B/soul singer of the 1960s was
due to the influx of British copycat bluesmen onto
the American charts.The 'British invasion' really
watered down the blues and Jerry Lee began to
see that blues music in its original form was
migrating to the country charts.
For Jerry Lee,blues and country were always very
similar and Lewis turned to country music sung
with blues feeling for his 1968 album "Another
place another time".The title track,"What's made
Milwaukee famous" & a few more were big hits
and set the path for the future of Lewis.
More country albums continued throughout the
late 1969s and produced such big hits as "To
make love sweeter for you","She still comes
around","Once more with feeling","She even
woke me up to say goodbye" and others.Lewis'
bluesy singing combined with the country
melodies of the songs made this the greatest
country music of the '60s.

THERE MUST BE MORE TO LOVE THAN THIS:
-------------------------------------
In the 1970s,Lewis' albums maintained a formula:
Most of the songs on them were slow country songs
but there was also one or two blues,jazz or rock
'n' roll revivals on them as well to maintain his
older fans.
This album from 1970 was the first example."Sweet
Georgia Brown" was a wild version of an old jazz
standard & "Reuben James" was a fast bluegrass
song.The title track (A No.1 hit),"Bottles &
barstools","Woman,woman" & "I'd be talking all
the time" were slow country while "One more time"
was country/blues.

TOUCHING HOME:
--------------
This album followed the same procedure as "There
must be more to love than this" but was a lot more
country orientated."Please don't talk about me
when I'm gone" was a wild version of a jazz song.
Lewis' approach was similar to his approach on
"Sweet Georgia Brown".All the other tracks on
the album were country,though.
The title track is possibly Jerry Lee's best ever
country recording and mixed country and blues to
good effect.Jerry Lee was also one of if not the
first to record "Help me make it through the night",
a bluesy song that would become a huge standard
later."Coming back for more" is a great piece of
Western Swing music while "Mother the queen of
my heart" shows us Jerry Lee's affinity with
Jimmie Rodgers' music."Time changes everything"
improves greatly on the Bob Wills original and
sounds like a Moon Mullican performance.
Overall,this album reveals Lewis the country
vocalist at his best.

THE KILLER ROCKS ON:
--------------------
In 1973,Jerry Lee would almost abandon country
music completely.In 1972,he diverged from the
country style for one album and the result
was a very popular set that told him that blues
based albums sold better than country based
albums.The idea of a blues/rock album a year,
as well as a few country albums was adopted as
the way of the future.
'Killer rocks on' was an excellent set.There
were many highlights and chief among them was
a powerful blues version of Roy Hamilton's
"You can have her".The old blues "C.C Rider",
which Jerry Lee had cut at least twice before,
always received an excellent treatment from
Lewis and this is one of his best.The Elvis
Presley pop song "Don't be cruel" is given a
definitive blues treatment by Jerry Lee,while
another '50s hit - Fats Domino's "I'm walking" -
also receives a great boogie/blues treatment.
There were many songs written by others that
were just waiting for the Lewis treatment.
"Chantilly lace",a 1958 Big Bopper hit,is
greatly improved upon by Lewis,while the C&W
standard "Me & Bobby McGee" also receives
the performance it deserved.Charlie Rich's
material always brought out the best in Lewis
and "Lonely weekends" is no exception.Joe
South's gospel/blues/country compositions
"Games people play" & "Walk a mile in my
shoes" also reach their full potential
in the hands of Lewis.
The only faults about the album was some
over-production and the release of three
tracks previuosly released on other
albums.

WHO'S GONNA PLAY THIS OLD PIANO:
--------------------------------
This album was a country album less pure in style
than many of its predecessors.The songs are country
in structure - but their performance from Lewis is
a blues-country hybrid.
Dallas Frazier has been one of the greatest writers
in country music and his contributions to Lewis in
the past have been big highlights ("Touching home",
"When he walks on you",etc.).The tracks he wrote for
this album are far bluesier in nature - "We both know
which one of us was wrong" & "She's reaching for my
mind".The title track & "Bottom dollar" - written by
Bill Joe Shaver,who himself would be a country-blues
star - are excellent examples of Western Swing.
"No more hanging on" is classic country and should
have been a hit while "Too many rivers to cross" is
Lewis' interpretation of how Sinatra might have
approached country music."No traffic out of Abilene"
is a modern sounding country-rock song again showing
Lewis' versatality.

WOULD YOU TAKE ANOTHER CHANCEON ME:
-----------------------------------
During his Sun years,Lewis' country music had
mainly been cover versions of songs by the artists
he was influenced by.Most of his originals at Sun
were of a blues nature.At Mercury,after Lewis hit
big as a country star,things changed.There was
a big emphasis on top class original country
music.
This album is a great example.The title track,
which was a No.1 country hit,was country-blues
with a touch of soul,while "Another handshaking
goodbye" & "Lonesome fiddle man" was country
balladry at its best."The hurting part" was a
tough blues,while "The goodbye of the year" was
in the mould of "Touching home".

THE SESSION:
------------
Jerry Lee has always been unfortunate to see others
benefit from his style.Jerry Lee's ideas have been
stolen by many - and many of his ideas and styles
have been hitmaking potential for many the inferior
artist.
However,thankfully there were genuine poeple who
benefitted from Lewis' style who 'repaid' Lewis a
complement."The Session" album is an example of
this.The album features some top class British
guitarists and even quite a few hippies.
This combination may have been strange - but
it works well.Jerry Lee is doing what he does
best and the allstar band back him resulting in
a classic blues album.
There are many highlights.Chief among them is
"No headstone on my grave",a Charlie Rich blues
composition.Lewis storms his way through the song
at both fast and slow tempos,resulting in one of
the greatest of Jerry Lee's blues recordings.
Jerry Lee also shows that he can out-blues even
the prominant black blues guys of the day.Jerry's
versions of Jimmy Reed's "Big boss man" & "Baby
what you want do" are way bluesier than the
originals.Johnny Ace's "Pledging my love" is a
pleasant blues ballad,while Chuck Berry's "Memphis"
also gets the powerful Lewis blues treatment.
The New Orleans rock 'n' roll standard "Sea
cruise" also gets a definitive boogie-ing up by
Jerry Lee while the original "Jukebox" is another
example of Lewis' blues versatility."Trouble in
mind",a '20s blues standard,reveals Lewis' blues
vocals at their best.There is soul and urgency
about this performance and its yet another blues
classic from Lewis.
Jerry Lee also recorded versions of songs he did
at Sun.The best of these include "Sixty minute man",
a jazzy R&B standard complete with excellent slide
guitar playing from the band.Also "Be bop a Lula",
a song originally a hit for Gene Vincent,gets the
bluesiest treatment imaginable from Jerry Lee.

SOUTHERN ROOTS:
---------------
After 5 years of more or less country orientation,
Jerry Lee decided in 1973 to go back to the blues
side of his music."The session" was one album that
revealed that,this one was another.
"Meat man",an original,was Lewis' kind of song: a
tough,suggestive gutbucket blues."Hold on I'm coming"
is equally as good - a blues assault on a soul track.
"Just a little bit" was an old blues standard that
Lewis made his own and this performance echoes his
double-entrende blues from his Sun days like "Big
legged woman" or "Keep your hands off of it".
On the more polite side was a great original
reading of "Blueberry hill" that differed from the
Fats Domino or Louis Armstrong versions that preceded
his one."Big blue diamonds" & "Born to be a loser"
were there to keep country fans amused and yet reaked
with blues feeling."Bourbon street church" was a
tough blues/jazz hybrid with a truly Southern feel
while "Haunted house" was humourous blues at its best.
This was a classic blues/R&B album and boasted many
top class musicians.Many songs remained unreleased
from the album though including the excellent blues
"Raining in my heart".

BOOGIE WOOGIE COUNTRY MAN:
--------------------------
As the years at Mercury passed,there was less and less
emphasis on country music every time.If this 1975 album
had been cut 5 years earlier,it would have been pure
country.Yet,what we get here is a set of country intended
songs sung as blues.
"Forever forgiving" is,for example,more blues balladry than
country balladry."Remember me,I'm the one who loves you",
an old country standard,also gets a very bluesy treatment.
Even the originals ("Red hot memories","I can still hear the
music in the restroom","I'm still jealous of you","A little piece
and harmony") are very much blues.Moon Mullican's
"I was sorta wondering" was certainly an appropriate choice
for a country-blues album like this.Moon was,like Jerry Lee,
an artist who always wanted to do his country with a bluesy
feel.
More tracks on the album totally went away from the country
style altogether: The title track was pure blues boogie,while
"Jesus is on the mainline" is very much gospel blues.

---

WebSpawner Page Machine