Jerry Lee Lewis dies aged 87

[weltweit]

Notorious singer Jerry Lee Lewis dies aged 87

Jerry Lee Lewis, singer behind Great Balls of Fire, dies after life marred by scandal and violence.

www.bbc.co.uk

87 is a pretty good innings ..

 

[editor]

Notorious singer Jerry Lee Lewis dies aged 87

Jerry Lee Lewis, singer behind Great Balls of Fire, dies after life marred by scandal and violence.

www.bbc.co.uk

87 is a pretty good innings ..

I was amazed that he was still alive up until now!

 

[weltweit]

Obituary: Jerry Lee Lewis

The notorious wild man of rock’n’roll - who married his 13-year-old cousin and shot his bass player - has died at 87.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[weltweit]

Looks like he had a pretty wild life ..

 

[Knotted]

I think it Rich Hall who said he was still alive because he was avoiding hell.

 

[weltweit]

 

[tommers]

Goodness, gracious!

 

[weltweit]

 

[stavros]

I knew he still alive, but I thought he was older.

 

[dessiato]

I thought he was already dead. RIP Jerry

 

[weltweit]

I think I read he died aged xx with his 7th wife by his side ..

SEVENTH !!

 

[pseudonarcissus]

I think I read he died aged xx with his 7th wife by his side ..

SEVENTH !!

The third one was his 13 year old cousin…nice

 

[platinumsage]

He sounds like he was a total cunt his whole life tbh.

 

[danny la rouge]

Live at the Star Club is fucking amazing.

 

[RD2003]

I was amazed that he was still alive up until now!

Same here. Without any real reason it was in my subconscious that he died 25-30 years ago.

 

[tim]

Looks like he had a pretty wild life ..

That's one way of describing someone who married a thirteen-year-old child and probably murdered two of his other wives. No doubt your last words on Andrew Windsor will be, "He lived a pizza-loving life."

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Fantastic performer.

Shitty person.

 

[Spandex]

He sounds like he was a total cunt his whole life tbh.

This is very true.

Live at the Star Club is fucking amazing.

As is this.

Which cuts straight to the arguments about separating art from the artist. In this case it appears I can. He was by all accounts an irredeemably terrible person, but listening to Live at the Star Club, or seeing videos of his performances from around that time is a rush.

 

[RD2003]

It's about one o' clock in the afternoon on a Sunday in January, circa 1989. You're in an Holts's pub in Newton Heath, on your own. It's pissing down outside, and your clothes are still damp from the walk here. You've had no breakfast and you're on your third pint. You had a skinful last night, but you can think of fuck all else to do. The girl you were seeing cunted you off just before Christmas. You're reading the football reports in the Sunday papers. City lost yesterday. You keep looking up. It's only the hardliners at this time, and the atmosphere is subdued, if not downright defeated. You are not there yet, but you fear it might not be long off if you don't get your act together, yet you can't seem to do it. And you're only in your mid-20s ffs.

This comes on the jukebox*

It's kind of comforting, and at the same time not. You drink it in with the remainder of your beer and it brings you to yourself. You give the newspapers to the old guy along the row and head out into the rain. You have no fucking idea what you're going to do for the rest of the day. Work on Monday seems almost inviting.


*Holts's pubs and the music that generally dominated in them... Maybe only native Mancunians of a certain age can remember and understand.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Notorious singer Jerry Lee Lewis dies aged 87

Jerry Lee Lewis, singer behind Great Balls of Fire, dies after life marred by scandal and violence.

www.bbc.co.uk

87 is a pretty good innings ..

Longer innings than the women he murdered.

That obit is a disgrace tbh. Doesn't mention how he beat up most of his wives and murdered at least one, probably two, of them.

'God bless jll?'

Pass the sick bag.

Also doesn't mention why he set the piano on fire and what he said.

Might have made some of those tributes look a tad ill-judged. Bad BBC.

 

[Kaka Tim]

The last of the rock roll originals. The fucker was possessed. And how did he manage to live so long? A shit of a man. A Genius performer.

 

[WouldBe]

Notorious singer Jerry Lee Lewis dies aged 87

Jerry Lee Lewis, singer behind Great Balls of Fire, dies after life marred by scandal and violence.

www.bbc.co.uk

87 is a pretty good innings ..

According to the BBC at dinner:-

Jerry Lee Lewis
2035 - 2022

 

[petee]

first cousin to jimmy swaggart.
just sayin', like.

 

[Yossarian]

This obituary was a good read - I thought it got the tone right by addressing his shittiness as a human being before going into detail about the music.

Jerry Lee Lewis was known as the Killer, and it wasn’t a casual sobriquet — a schoolmate called him that after he tried to strangle a teacher. He once shot his bass player in the chest; just about all of his seven wives, including one who was a child, said he beat them; and there’s a lingering suspicion that he murdered wife No. 5. He was the very model of a high-functioning sociopath and somehow defied hard living, drug and alcohol abuse, and serious health problems to make it well into his ninth decade.

...He never backed down, and he viewed the world with a maniacal severity that hid a bleak sense of mischief that itself hid another layer of severity beneath it. He was a thief, a bigamist, an adulterer, a sexual predator, a family abandoner, and a liar, and felt — knew — society’s rules didn’t apply to him to such an extent that he acknowledged the fact flatly. There is one filmed interview with Jerry Lee Lewis that could be mistaken for an outtake from Mindhunter.

Jerry Lee Lewis Was an SOB Right to the End

The talented hell-raiser of early rock and roll died at 87.

www.vulture.com

 

[DaphneM]

RIP abusive paedophile

 

[ElizabethofYork]

My dad was a huge fan, and JLLs country and western songs are the soundtrack to my childhood.

I have very mixed feelings. Memories of my lovely dad, brilliant songs and performances, and the knowledge that JLL was a vile person.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Didn't he get into country music because it was the only scene where him being an incestuous nonce wouldn't harm his popularity?

 

[Yossarian]

Didn't he get into country music because it was the only scene where him being an incestuous nonce wouldn't harm his popularity?

Yep, as the Vulture obituary puts it:

As the 1960s stretched on, Lewis kept touring and even went back to England. He moved to Smash Records — Mercury Records’ Nashville imprint — and tried to get back into the rock world with an album called The Return of Rock. That didn’t work.

But then, almost accidentally, he became a country star. A label executive sensed he could sell Jerry Lee to a less persnickety audience.

 

[rutabowa]

This obituary was a good read - I thought it got the tone right by addressing his shittiness as a human being before going into detail about the music.

Jerry Lee Lewis was known as the Killer, and it wasn’t a casual sobriquet — a schoolmate called him that after he tried to strangle a teacher. He once shot his bass player in the chest; just about all of his seven wives, including one who was a child, said he beat them; and there’s a lingering suspicion that he murdered wife No. 5. He was the very model of a high-functioning sociopath and somehow defied hard living, drug and alcohol abuse, and serious health problems to make it well into his ninth decade.

...He never backed down, and he viewed the world with a maniacal severity that hid a bleak sense of mischief that itself hid another layer of severity beneath it. He was a thief, a bigamist, an adulterer, a sexual predator, a family abandoner, and a liar, and felt — knew — society’s rules didn’t apply to him to such an extent that he acknowledged the fact flatly. There is one filmed interview with Jerry Lee Lewis that could be mistaken for an outtake from Mindhunter.

Jerry Lee Lewis Was an SOB Right to the End

The talented hell-raiser of early rock and roll died at 87.

www.vulture.com

That is an amazing obituary