Jerry Lee Lewis

• Genre: '50s Rock 'n' Roll
• Hometown: Memphis
• Jerry Lee Lewis Website

About

The Killer still sounds much the same as he did in the late 1950s. His trademark pumping piano and wild mix of country with R&B sounds just as fresh and vital as it did forty years ago. Lewis' crazy stage antics masked his innate shyness. While it was his image that helped propel him to national attention, it was his songs that kept him there: “Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Breathless” have defined rock ‘n' roll. Lewis' personal life turned out to be as wild as his stage persona and helped to ruin the first phase of his career — his drinking, incest, gun violence, and drug addiction had the press vilifying him as a walking southern stereotype. He made a comeback in country music in the late ‘60s and had a long period of success there. Since the ‘80s he has continued to stun live audiences by performing his classic material. To this day, Jerry Lee Lewis gives off more energy than a nuclear reactor, and he's just as volatile.

- Nick Dedina