Back in 1993, when the Rolling stones were recording Voodoo Lounge in County Kildare, Ireland, they discovered that Jerry Lee Lewis was hiding out from the IRS down the road apiece. Serendipity, right? So they bring the ol' sumbitch into the studio, and jam away. But when Jerry Lee hears the playback, he starts picking the Stones apart, a little "Hey, that drum's a bit slow there; that guitar isn't on point there..." And Keith Richards loses his temper, tells him to back the expletive off, and storms out. Upon which, Jerry Lee turns around and says "Well, it usually works."
I've had this disc forever. I think I either picked it up on Amazon, in the earliest days of same, or it was part of a package I got for joining BMG way the hell back in the summer of 1998. In any case, I got it for the same reason that anyone of my generation ever picked up a Jerry Lee Lewis: that one scene in Top Gun when a wasted Goose howled his way through "Great Balls of Fire" at the piano, and it sequed to Mav on his motorbike with what's-her-name, with the Jerry Lee original in the background. Whatever I thought of that movie as a kid, I loved that song. It was and is perfect, pure boogie, sex and noise and punch.
Hipsters and rock snobs don't pay much attention to Lewis as a pianist, preferring to wax rhapsodic over stride pianists like Willie "the Lion" Smith that most of them will never hear (Then again, his 2006 album Last Man Standing did top the indie charts, so what do I know?). But it remains a plain fact that during most of Sun Records storied existence, Lewis was the house piano player: you can hear him on Carl Perkins' "Matchbox" which is a highlight of this disk. He also played on "Your True Love," "You Can Do No Wrong," and "Put Your Cat Clothes On," all by Perkins, plus Billy Lee Riley's "Flyin Saucers Rock'n'Roll" one of the great scrawling, unheard 50's rock songs.
Basically, for someone like me, this was a necessary purchase, and the kind I'm unlikely to get rid of for much the same reason I hang onto Toys in the Attic: sometimes, you just gotta hear a little Killer. I'd be lying if I said I spun it a whole lot, but I'd also be lying if I said that the lesser-known tracks haven't grown on me over the years. "Breathless" has gradually overcome my prejudice against it for appearing after "Great Balls of Fire." "High School Confidential" has, too, mostly for its dirty dirty guitar sound. The aforementioned "Matchbox" has a wonderful building burn to it. And his take on "What'd I Say" determinedly makes you forgive Lewis for not being Ray Charles.
And then there's "Lewis Boogie," which I thought was cheesy and cheap when I first heard it, but has become the essential song on the disc, the distillation of the Killer spirit. Because the man's towering, Fuck-the-Stones-I'm-Jerry-Lee-Lewis ego and endless self-reference are precisely what makes these songs good; a pounding ferocity that brooks no rival in its determination to make its stamp upon the music. Only one without any sense of the fitness of things could be surprised that he's the Last Man Standing.
Grade: L
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