I don’t remember exactly when or why my obsession with Jerry Lee Lewis began. Our home was almost music-less when I was growing up, due to my dad’s intolerance for rock n’ roll. He came of age in the fifties, and listened to a lot of music back then. When he went into the Air Force, the radio played top 40 day and night in the barracks. The DJ would play the top five every hour, and it was the Duke of Earl for the hundredth time that pushed him over the edge. He vowed never to listen to rock n’ roll again, and switched to country and western for a while.

Then he got entangled in the Independent Fundamental Baptist church, they condemned secular music, and the house fell silent.

So, after I left home, I discovered the oldies station, and fell in love. The only exposure I had to these roots of rock  were from snippets in movies and television. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me. That music just sent me. While the rest of the free world was jamming to Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails, I was jiving to Jerry Lee Lewis.

There was a hole in my soul shaped just like the Killer’s music, and it clicked right in place. Then there’s his whole persona, the bad boy, the rebel, the dual nature of needing  and wanting to perform rock music and also feeling Jesus guilty for doing so. I relate to him on many levels.

The danger of being a fangirl that reaches fifty years into the past for a source is that almost all of the artists I admire are, um, not performing. That is to say, some may have retired from public life, but most of them have gone on to that Great Winter Dance Party in the sky.

But not The Killer, daddy-o! The Ferriday Kid still tours and gives a few performances a year. Jerry Lee is truly The Last Man Standing, and I feel so lucky that my favorite is the one that lasted the longest.  I got to see him at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend back in 2011, and when he came up on the list for VLVRW 21 for 2018. I knew I had to get at him.

My poor, beleaguered, yet game husband and I braved the 85+ degree heat, snarling rockabilly chicks and clouds of pot smoke to stand in the parking lot of the Orleans Hotel and Casino so I could see The Killer one more time.

There was a sold-out crowd, and they got impatient with the warm up act, chanting “Jer-RY, Jer-RY like a bunch of pompadoured reality show spectators. When The Killer came out, we all hollered. He grinned, and sat right down on the bench to play.

I don’t know if Jerry Lee had a sore throat, or if it’s just the ravages of age and performing for 60 years, but his voice was very hoarse, especially on the drawn out notes. This made me a little sad. He sounded kind of terrible. But even around the croaking, you could still get notes and moments that sounded like the Ferriday Kid. His piano playing was fantastic of course. The longer he performed, the better sounding his voice got. We were all rooting for him and screaming and whistling. The adulation seemed to shore him up as the concert went on. Between songs, he would say a little something. The sound was not good, and he remarked on it but said we were going to do our best with what we had. Another time he admitted that his voice was “coming and going, mostly going I guess” but he was going to give us a “good show”.  He’s a performer, this is what he is called to and lives for. He might have been ill, and his hand trembly as he reached for his can of Sprite between songs. But he was going to do his damnedest to give a good show.

By the time he sang his last song, Whole Lotta Shakin’,  he was in pretty good voice. After the bridge when he said “Let’s go ONE TIME” and pounded out that signature piano riff, there he was in total, THERE was The Killer. The crowd roared. I am not ashamed to admit my eyes got a little leaky at that moment. He stood up, and the roaring got even more thunderous. As he waved and made his way off the stage, he wore that Killer sly smile.

The Stray Cats were to come on an hour later, but I felt a little drained and my lower back was killing me from standing on the hard cement for hours. The Ferriday Kid ain’t the only one feeling his age. So I left, satisfied with the “good show”. Ol Jerry Lee’s still gets at it, gang, raspiness and all. I’ll see him any chance I get, I don’t care if his voice makes dogs howl and I have to wear at truss to be able to stand to hear it,  I’ll be the Last Fan Standing.

 

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