Rock n’ roll star Jerry Lee Lewis, finest recognized for 1957 hit Great Balls of Fire, has died on the age of 87.
Lewis died at dwelling in Memphis, Tennessee, his consultant Zach Farnum confirmed.
The rock n’ roll pioneer – who known as himself The Killer – was additionally recognized for the track Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On and was the final survivor of a technology of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
He was as soon as described as “a one-man stampede”. During a 1957 efficiency of Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On for a TV present, chairs had been thrown at him.
“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ‘n ‘roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” he famously mentioned about himself after the present.
However, his non-public life was mired by scandal.
For a short time, in 1958, he was a contender to switch Presley as rock’s primary, after Elvis was drafted into the Army.
But whereas Lewis toured in England, the press found he was married to 13-year-old (presumably even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown. She was his cousin, and he was nonetheless married to his earlier spouse.
His tour was cancelled, he was blacklisted from the radio, and his earnings dropped in a single day to nearly nothing.
“I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis advised the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when requested concerning the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”
Mental cruelty
Over the next many years, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, authorized disputes and bodily sickness.
Two of his seven marriages led to his spouse’s early loss of life. Brown herself divorced him within the early Seventies, and would later allege bodily and psychological cruelty that almost drove her to suicide.
“If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she advised People journal in 1989.
Lewis reinvented himself as a rustic performer within the Sixties, and the music business finally forgave him.
He gained three Grammys, and recorded with a number of the business’s best stars, together with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow and Tim McGraw.
Lewis had six kids. One son, Steve Allen Lewis drowned in a swimming pool in 1962 aged three, and one other, Jerry Lee Jr, died in a site visitors accident at 19 in 1973.
Source: information.sky.com”