Jerry Lee Lewis was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist who lived from September 29, 1935, to October 28, 2022. He was known as “the Killer” and was hailed as “the first great wild man of rock & roll and one of the most significant pianists of the twentieth century.”
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Value of Jerry Lee Lewis in 2022
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Jerry Lee Lewis had a $10 million net worth at the time of his passing. Contrarily, Celebworth.net estimates the fortune to be considerably higher, at $15.45 million. Lewis came from a low-income family.
His father, a farmer, mortgaged his farm to purchase a piano for his son after learning of his passion for music. In 1949, the singer made his first public appearance, at which point he started performing in neighborhood bars and eateries.
Seven marriages, including two bigamous unions and one with a young relative, were had by Jerry Lee Lewis. He had six kids while he was married.
When Jerry Lee Lewis was 16 years old, he wed Dorothy Barton, a preacher’s daughter. 20 months, from February 1952 to October 1953, were spent as a married couple.
Lewis’s second marriage to Jane Mitchum, which took place in September 1953—23 days before his divorce from Barton became final—was disputed.
In October 1957, four years had passed before he filed for divorce. Their two children were Jerry Lee Lewis Jr. (1954–1973) and Ronnie Guy Lewis (1954–1973). (b. 1956). When Jerry Lee Lewis Jr.’s Jeep was overturned in 1973, he was only 19 years old.
Lewis, Jerry Lee Biography
Elmo Kidd Lewis Sr. and Mary “Mamie” Herron Lewis welcomed Jerry Lee Lewis into the world in Ferriday, Louisiana. He was up in an impoverished farming family in Eastern Louisiana.
With two cousins, Mickey Gilley (later a well-known country music performer) and Jimmy Swaggart, he started piano lessons when he was a little child (later a popular televangelist).
His parents took out a mortgage on their farm to buy him a piano. Lewis was influenced by Carl McVoy, an elderly relative who later made records with Bill Black’s Combo, the radio, and the music coming from Haney’s Big House, a black juke joint across the tracks.
On November 19, 1949, Lewis made his debut in front of the general public with a country and western band at a Ferriday car dealership. His rendition of Sticks McGhee’s “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” was the highlight of his performance. The live album By Request, More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth features a reference by Lewis to Moon Mullican as an artist who influenced him.
To enable him to sing only hymns of the evangelical faith, his mother enrolled him at the Southwest Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas.
The same night Lewis dared to play a boogie-woogie version of “My God Is Real” at a church gathering, his association with the organization came to an end. Lewis performed “worldly” music during a talent show, according to Pearry Green, the student body president at the time.
Career
- At Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, Lewis started recording there in 1952. He sang Lefty Frizzell’s “Don’t Stay Away (Till Love Grows Cold)” and his own instrumental “Jerry’s Boogie” (AKA New Orleans Boogie). In Memphis, Tennessee, where he started his career, Lewis worked with Sun Records and cut many of his best-known tracks. “Greenback Dollar” is performed by Ray Harris of Sun Records, with Lewis at the keyboard.
- In November 1956, Lewis traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, to appear at a Sun Records audition. Producer and engineer Jack Clement recorded Lewis’s rendition of Ray Price’s “Crazy Arms” and his song “End of the Road” despite label boss Sam Phillips being in Florida. In December 1956, Lewis started making recordings both as a solo artist and as a session pianist for other Sun vocalists, such as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. His distinctive piano playing may be heard on several songs, including Carl Perkins’ “Matchbox,” “Your True Love,” and “Put Your Cat Clothes On,” as well as Billy Lee Riley’s “Flyin’ Saucers Rock’n’Roll,” which were recorded on Sun in late 1956 and early 1957.
- On December 4, 1956, when Perkins and Lewis were in the studio creating new music, Elvis Presley gave Phillips a simple call. Johnny Cash was there as well to watch Perkins. The four then started a spontaneous jam session while Phillips left the recording playing. These tracks were collected on the album Million Dollar Quartet, with nearly half of them being gospel songs. The songs “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Paralyzed” by Elvis Presley, “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” by Chuck Berry, and “Don’t Forbid Me” by Pat Boone are also included.
- With hits like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On,” a Big Maybelle cover, and “Great Balls of Fire,” his biggest hit, Lewis’s singles—on which he was billed as “Jerry Lee Lewis And His Pumping Piano”—launched his solo career in 1957. These singles received criticism for the songs, which led some radio stations to boycott them. The National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress selected “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” for permanent preservation in 2005. According to numerous first-hand witnesses, including Johnny Cash, Lewis, a devout Christian, was concerned by the wickedness of his content, which he believed was sending him and his audience to Hell. Waylon Payne played this aspect of Lewis’ persona in the 2005 movie Walk the Line, which was based on Johnny Cash’s memoirs.
- Lewis’s performance act included sitting on the keyboard, standing on the piano, and hammering the keys with his heel. He even knocked the piano bench away and played while standing, raking his hands up and down the keys. According to him, kicking over the bench was initially an accident, but once it received favorable feedback, he decided to keep it in the performance. He performed “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” and used some of these approaches in his first television debut on July 28, 1957, on The Steve Allen Show.
- In movies like High School Confidential (where he sang the title song from the back of a flatbed truck) and Jamboree, you can see his dramatic stage presence. Both “rock and roll’s first great wild man” and “rock and roll’s first great eclectic” were labels given to him. Lewis’s fashion sense is thought to have influenced classical composer Michael Nyman.
Lewis, Jerry Lee Size and Weight
Jerry Lee Lewis has a height of 5 feet 11 inches. He is about 70 kilograms in weight. He has gorgeous, warm black eyes, and his hair is black. His dress size, shoe size, biceps, chest, waist, hips, and other physical characteristics are all unknown.
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