MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis has died at age 87, according to his publicist.
The publicist said Judith, Lewis’ seventh wife, was by his side when he passed away at his home in Southaven in Desoto County, Mississippi, south of Memphis. “He told her, in his final days, that he welcomed the hereafter, and that he was not afraid,” according to the news release.
The news came two days after the publication of an erroneous TMZ report of his death, later retracted.
Lewis suffered from various illnesses throughout the last few years, and was bed ridden in early October when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Kris Kristofferson accepted the honor in his stead, then drove to the Mid-South to see Lewis and present the award to the icon, according to Lewis’ official Facebook page.
A wild & raucous performer
Known for hits like, ‘Great Balls of Fire’ and ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On,’ Lewis was an icon of Country and Rock and Roll for decades. Dubbed ‘The Killer,’ the aggressive and enthusiastic entertainer was known for kicking over his piano bench and playing standing up.
Lewis was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.
“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis.
His early career marred by scandal
While he called Mississippi home in his final years, Lewis was born in Faraday, Louisiana in 1935. He learned to play piano at the age of nine, when he was 21.
He landed a job at Memphis' iconic Sun Studios and it was there where he Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Carl Perkins famously recorded a jam session, which came to be known as the Million Dollar Quartet. In fact, Lewis was the Quartet’s longest living member. It also inspired a 2010 Broadway musical, “Million Dollar Quartet."
For a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was canceled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.
“I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”
In the fallout of the scandal, Lewis' career was never the same.
Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness. Two of his many marriages ended in his wife’s early death. Brown herself divorced him in the early 1970s and would later allege physical and mental cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.
“If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.
His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 to his longtime residence near Nesbit, Mississippi — complete with a piano-shaped swimming pool — he set up a 900 phone number fans could call for a recorded message at $2.75 a minute.
Reinventing the legend
Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry eventually forgave him, long after he stopped having hits. He won three Grammys, and recorded with some of the industry's greatest stars.
In 1986, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and others, he made the inaugural class of inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Killer not only outlasted his contemporaries but saw his life and music periodically reintroduced to younger fans, including the the 1989 biopic “Great Balls of Fire,” starring Dennis Quaid, and Ethan Coen’s 2022 documentary “Trouble in Mind.”
He won a Grammy in 1987 as part of an interview album that was cited for best spoken word recording, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005. The following year, “Whole Lotta Shakin’” was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, whose board praised the “propulsive boogie piano that was perfectly complemented by the drive of J.M. Van Eaton’s energetic drumming. The listeners to the recording, like Lewis himself, had a hard time remaining seated during the performance.”
In 2006, Lewis came out with “Last Man Standing,” featuring Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album “Mean Old Man.”
ABC24 last interviewed him in April of 2013, days before opening of the Jerry Lee Lewis café and Honky Tonk on Beale Street. Lewis opened the hotspot to celebrate the rockabilly culture he helped create.
Even in his senior years, he continued playing live shows, however, canceled concerts in Memphis were an early indication of his failing health.
Lewis is survived by his wife Judith, his children Jerry Lee Lewis III, Ronnie Lewis, Pheobe Lewis, and Lori Lancaster, sister Linda Gail Lewis, cousin Jimmy Swaggart, and many grandchildren, nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents Elmo and Mamie Lewis, sons Steve Allen Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis Jr., his siblings Elmo Lewis Jr. and Frankie Jean Lewis and his cousin Mickey Gilley.
Funeral services
Services and more information will be announced in the following days. In lieu of flowers, the Lewis family requests donations be made in Jerry Lee Lewis' honor to the Arthritis Foundation or MusiCares - the non-profit foundation of the GRAMMYs / National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.