Jerry Lee and me

Rookie reporter meets rock and roll hero, a cautionary tale

(Note: Rock and roll pioneer, Jerry Lee Lewis, died October 28, 2022. He was 87 years old. I first heard of Jerry Lee Lewis nearly five decades ago. Some 10 years later, I would interview him. It would be a transformative experience.)

by Dominick Cross

It was 1972, the summer before my junior year in high school.

I had the J. Geils Band’s second album, The Morning After (1971), on the turntable downstairs in the rec room of our Virginia Beach, Va., home. The fourth song on Side 2, “Floyd’s Hotel,” was playing.

Seth Justman was tickling the ivories oh so fine, when, as good neighbors do, my mom’s friend pulled back the sliding screen door and walked right in.

“Is that Jerry Lee Lewis?” she asked as Justman’s piano break took off.

“No. It’s the J. Geils Band,” I said. “Who’s Jerry Lee Lewis?”

“He plays piano like that,” she said and continued through the rec room and on up the stairs for a visit with my mom.

That was all I needed to hear. From that point on, I bought every Jerry Lee Lewis album I would find.

My first Lewis album is THE SESSION, Recorded in LONDON with great British guest artists. It’s packed with classic renditions of some of his hits and other songs he made his own, which was any song he played.

Musicians in the studio include Peter Frampton, Delaney Bramlett, Kenney Jones, Mickey Jones, Albert Lee, Alvin Lee, Rory Gallagher, Gary Wright and Kenny Lovelace.

Of course The Session album was a mainstay at my house parties.

One of the two records of the double album even survived a rollicking party in 1977 when the shelf that supported the turntable wiggled loose from the wall and crashed to the shag carpet in Virginia Beach, Va.

Indeed there was a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.

It was Lewis’ boogie-woogie piano playing that first caught my ear; a deep appreciation for his vocal range and style(s) soon followed. And then there’s the way he made each song his.

But what made me laugh out loud was the way he unabashedly put some version of his name, or his nickname, “The Killer,” into the songs he played. And then there’s the witty/wiseacre comments — especially the sexual innuendos — that he’d throw in songs here and there that would also crack me up.

At the end of the rockin’ bluesy number, “No Headstone on My Grave” (Charlie Rich) on The Sessions album, Lewis says, “Don’t put a headstone on my grave. I want a monument. This is the Killer speaking, dahlin’.”

Near the end of Gordon Lightfoot’s gentle “Early Morning Rain,” after crooning a lyric, Lewis clips it with, “Think about it, darlin’.” And as the song begins to fade, he pines away, “Yes, I’m the Killer. But I sure do dread them mother humpin’ planes.”

In the subsequent albums of his I would buy, I found that Lewis talked smack on almost every song, if not every one, he played.

Mais! The audacity! I loved his attitude. I would later name the first cat I had as an adult after Lewis because of the way he frantically ran around the house chasing things seen and unseen — much the same way Lewis played piano.

Admittedly, it wasn’t too long after listening to Jerry Lee with my friends that we would call each other “Killer.” We’d also quote one of his witticisms when a situation called for it and even when it didn’t.

Yep, Jerry Lee Lewis was my new music hero and he and J. Geils would alternate as my favorite bands as I left my teen years and stepped into my 20s.

I’d become a huge fan of Jerry Lee and proselytized every chance I got. In time, however, friends, coworkers and some folks older and wiser than me would expound on some of the unpleasant things about The Killer.

There’s the marriage to his 13-year old second cousin and the subsequent marriages (eventually, seven total); his IRS issues; and the mysterious death of one of his wives.

“Is that Jerry Lee Lewis?” she asked as (Seth) Justman’s piano break took off.

“No. It’s the J. Geils Band,” I said. “Who’s Jerry Lee Lewis?”

It wasn’t that I did not want to acknowledge what I’d heard and read about Lewis, I did, but somehow I’d found a way to separate his reality from my fandom. I mean, what the man did with a piano was incredible: pounding the keys with raw abandon like a demon, then tinkling them with the sincerity and touch of an angel — sometimes in the same song.

And his voice was just as powerful or nimble as the particular song he took on may or may not have intended.

So while the unsavory news put a damper on all that good music he’d made and the good times I was having listening to it, but it was damn the truth and spin the vinyl.

I saw Jerry Lee Lewis live in concert three times. The first time, however, not so much. It was the late ’70s or early ’80s at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Va.

Lewis was late getting to the stage. When he finally came out, he was wobbling somewhat. He grabbed the guitar from the guitarist and said he could also play guitar. He strummed it a few times and handed it back. He swerved over to the bass player and did the same thing.

He then proclaimed he could also play the drums. As he headed to the drum kit, he stumbled and pretty much fell into it. The lights came up, stagehands rushed in, they stood Lewis up and escorted him off the stage.

I was gobsmacked.

A few years later, I was working at The Daily Advance, a multi-county newspaper located in Elizabeth City in northeastern North Carolina. It was my first full-time newspaper job. I was a sportswriter.

It was the early 1980s and I read that Jerry Lee had a gig about an hour-and-a-half away in my hometown of Virginia Beach. If memory and the Internet serves me right, I do believe I found the show was at a venue called Michael’s Club.

I contacted the management to secure a press pass for myself and our photographer, Joe Swift.

It was quite the show. Lewis nailed the songs vocally and instrumentally; he ripped-up (and down) the keyboard like a banshee and he belted the lyrics and tossed out his classic one-liners like a man possessed.

The performance was a 180 from the Hampton disaster; it was dynamic. Jerry Lee Lewis fired on all cylinders. The house rocked and rolled; even the waves of the Atlantic Ocean danced and fell exhausted on the shore at show’s end.

After the performance, the media was invited backstage.

In the small room, a shelf as wide as the IBM Selectric Typewriter that sat upon it, was attached not quite chest-high to the wall.

Jerry Lee Lewis entered the room with all the subtleness of a train careening off the tracks. He stopped at the typewriter and said, with great animation, I can play this, too.

He ran his fingers across it like he did the piano. Think “Great Balls of Fire.” He even banged his elbows on the keys. As a rookie reporter just up from the bush leagues and onto the minors, I was in awe.

Truly a Killer entrance.

Appearing more exhausted than he acted, Lewis eventually took a seat on the worn couch and slouched in the corner, a towel on the back of his neck. A reporter found the cushion on the other side of him and I was content on its arm — right next to the rock and roll icon.

As questions were tossed out and more or less answered, Lewis removed the Rolex(?) watch he was wearing and toyed with it. The undone top button on his shirt revealed a medallion of sorts.

He noticed me looking at the watch and said, Here, hold this.

That watch weighed five pounds it seemed. I could not believe he played the piano as effortlessly as he did with it on his wrist. Lewis made sure I returned his watch, in so many words. I pointed to his chest and asked about the medallion.

Son, he said to me, I got this in Vietnam.

We laughed at his comment, another typical Jerry Lee Lewis quip.

But what he said next, in all honesty, was beyond the pale; a tasteless remark that included a racial epithet and Charlie Pride.

I was stunned, crushed; clueless how to act. Or react. In fact, I don’t recall what happened next or how or when we concluded the interview or exited the room.

When I got home that night, one of the first things I did was apologize to my cat for naming him after Jerry Lee Lewis. From then on, he was known simply as Lewis.

A day or so later, I wrote a rave review of the incomparable show, but nothing about what transpired afterward. I mean, who was I to call out a founding rock and roller who was also my hero?

I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.