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New York Times Bestseller
The greatest Southern storyteller of our time, New York Times bestselling author�Rick Bragg, tracks down the greatest rock and roller of all time, Jerry Lee Lewis—and gets his own story, from the source, for the very first time.
A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis spent his childhood raising hell in Ferriday, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi; galvanized the world with hit records like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” that gave rock and roll its devil’s edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousin—his third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock—and survived it all to be hailed as “one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience.”
Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story is the Killer’s life as he lived it, and as he shared it over two years with our greatest bard of Southern life: Rick Bragg. Rich with Lewis’s own words, framed by Bragg’s richly atmospheric narrative, , this is the last great untold rock-and-roll story, come to life on the page.
- Sales Rank: #86618 in Books
- Published on: 2014-10-28
- Released on: 2014-10-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.27" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 512 pages
- Autographed copy
Review
[Jerry Lee Lewis] is quite simply one of the best books about rock and roll ever...Rick Bragg has turned it into literature, fitting in somewhere between William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. (Vintage Guitar Magazine)
“Mesmerizing . . . IRick Bragg illuminates Jerry Lee Lewis’s controversial—but brilliant—life and career in this captivating biography.” (Parade)
“There’s plenty of richness in Rick Bragg’s retelling of the Killer’s life . . . .Bragg, a former reporter for the New York Times, hits all the legendary moments, both high and low . . . Worth reading.” (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review)
“It’s Jerry Lee Lewis’s unrepentant outrageousness that makes his life and this book irresistible.” (Wall Street Journal)
“One of the best rock biographies ever. Lewis has had his fingers in nearly every piece of the 20th century’s popular-music pie, and so Bragg’s biography becomes not just the history of the man but a history of modern American music.” (Shelf Awareness)
Lewis has found the ideal biographer in Alabaman Rick Bragg, an author and former New York Times writer who understands the texture and cadence of Lewis’ life that started in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana near the Mississippi River. (Associated Press)
“An enthralling look at the birth of rock & roll and the ensuing life of its arguably most colorful exponent.” (Entertainment Weekly)
“No writer is better suited than Rick Bragg to tell Lewis’s story. The result is a biography with the memorable language and narrative drive we expect only from the finest novels . . . the best book on rock and roll I have ever read.” (Ron Rash, author of Serena)
“An iconic rocker receives a warm, admiring biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author . . . Throughout, Bragg displays his characteristic frisky prose . . . From a skilled storyteller comes this entertaining, sympathetic story of a life flaring with fire, shuddering with shakin’.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))
“I loved every amphetamine-laced, whiskey-soaked, gun-shot page of it. (Ann Patchett)
“An epic life deserves an epic narrative, and Pulitzer Prize winner Bragg delivers such with this major work on rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis. (Library Journal)
“[Bragg] hits upon a perfect mix of humor and gravitas, never trying to over-explain or rationalize the adultery, divorces, pills, booze, guns and relentless arrogance that came to define Jerry Lee Lewis as much as the music and the hellfire showmanship did.” (Dallas Morning News)
“This is epic Southern storytelling at its most gripping.” (Chicago Tribune)
“This is Lewis’ version of his own story, filtered through Bragg’s gift for language and his feel for the South...His Own Story casts one of rock n’ roll’s outlandish lives in a new light, giving Lewis the voice in words that he always had in the notes.” (USA Today, four star review)
“This biography is a brilliant piece of work. Make no mistake: Not only is Rick Bragg the right man for this job, with blue-collar empathy in the marrow of his bones, he is the only writer who could have done it.” ( Tuscaloosa News)
“Bragg’s account does not pull punches, nor does it need to. Bragg successfully grasps the meaning of Jerry Lee Lewis and the music he begat.” (All About Jazz)
From the Back Cover
For nearly sixty years, Jerry Lee Lewis has been a monumental figure in American life. The wildest and most dangerous of the early rock and rollers, he electrified the world with hit records such as “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Breathless.” His music was raucous, exuberant, slyly sexual; his wailing vocals were grounded by the locomotive force of his pumping piano. But his persona and performing style were what changed the world: whipping his long hair back, he would pound the keyboard like a coal-fired steam engine, then kick back the bench, climb atop the piano, and work the audience like the Pentecostal preacher he almost became. Poised to steal the crown from Elvis Presley, he seemed unstoppable—until news of his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin broke during his first British tour, nearly ending his career.
Now, for the first time, Lewis’s story is told in full, as he shared it over two years with Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Rick Bragg. In a narrative rich with atmosphere and anecdote, we watch Jerry Lee emerge from the fields and levees of Depression-era Louisiana, blazing a path across Bible colleges and nightclubs en route to international fame. He shared bills with Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry, toured Australia with Buddy Holly and Paul Anka, and went Cadillac for Cadillac with Elvis on the streets of Memphis—even as both of them struggled with the conflict between their faith and their music. After a decade in the wilderness, he returned as the biggest star in country music, but his victory lap became a marathon of excess, a time of guns and pills and Calvert Extra. He crashed Rolls-Royces and Lincolns, including one he drove into the gates of Graceland; suffered the deaths of wives and loved ones; and nearly met his maker twice himself. Yet after six marriages, a long spell without a recording contract, and a bruising battle with the IRS, he overcame a crippling addiction, remarried, and scored his biggest hit records since the 1970s. Today, as he approaches his eightieth year, he continues to electrify audiences around the world.
The story of Jerry Lee Lewis has inspired songs and articles, books and films, but in these pages Rick Bragg restores a human complexity missing from other accounts. The result is a story of fire and faith and resilience, informed by Rick Bragg’s deep understanding of the American spirit, and rich with Jerry Lee’s own unforgettable voice.
About the Author
Rick Bragg is the author of a trilogy of bestselling books on the people of the American South. He is a professor of writing at the University of Alabama.
Most helpful customer reviews
66 of 70 people found the following review helpful.
Jerry Lee Lewis - His Own Story - a really great book by Rick Bragg
By G I KNIGHT
Jerry Lee Lewis – His Own Story
By Rick Bragg
I have just finished reading this 500 page book by Professor Rick Bragg. Thanks to Amazon’s excellent service the book arrived yesterday morning at 11am and it now 3pm on the following day and it has taken me almost every hour since to read it. You have heard of books you can’t put down – well this one stopped me going to sleep.
As Jerry himself would say, there have been a “flock” of books about him but none are anything like as good as this one.
I must confess here at the outset of this review to being an avid Jerry Lee fan and I have known him personally for over 52 years and been fortunate enough to fly with him in his private plane and to stay as a guest in Jerry’s home. As such I can vouch for the veracity and truthfulness of the way Jerry and Rick describe many of the events I attended. Absolutely nothing has been glossed over. This is not a sugar-coated biography.
It is an unusual book in as much as it is more than a just a biography as the author recalls past events and jogs Jerry’s memory into commenting on them. Frequently the actions described are quite shocking and this book is definitely unsuitable for maiden aunts and anyone of a nervous disposition.
The book tells how Jerry was delivered into this world by his father as the doctor was lying drunk beside the bed. It was a breach birth and Jerry says, “I was born feet first and I have been jumping ever since.” Jerry’s father Elmo played an important part in Jerry’s life and the wild streak that runs throughout the Lewis family meant that sometimes Elmo would be serving time in the dreaded Angola prison for “bootlegging liquor.”
Jerry’s mother Mamie did her best in very difficult circumstances and the book details their dirt poor existence in the south of Louisiana. It wasn’t until Jerry was 21 and checked into a cheap hotel in Memphis that he was in a place that had a sink and running water.
The book is excellent on Jerry’s upbringing in the small town of Ferriday and how he was constantly competing with his cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart. Jerry talks honestly about how he and Jimmy Lee stole goods from shops and he also tells of stealing a pistol. In fact one of the constant themes of the book is Jerry’s many run-ins with the law, the Inland Revenue, and his multitude of court cases.
Author Rick Bragg is already well known for his books and essays on the South and he writes eloquently on Jerry’s religious upbringing and the torments he still suffers today in his eightieth year as he tries to atone for all his misdeeds in the hope that he will make it to Heaven.
Surprisingly Jerry names some of his old girlfriends and recalls how he got naked by a riverbank with one 16 year old when he was just 13. However, in his mind he heard some Scripture and as he half expected a bolt of lightning at any second, they put their clothes back on. Jerry tells how he did not have sex until he was married at 16 and then he was disappointed and immediately decided he had married too young. Jerry eventually grew to like marriage as he eventually married seven different ladies – sometimes in a bit of a rush and without the precaution of divorcing the previous one. In the book Jerry details this unusual attitude to marriage in a very factual manner that will surprise many.
Jerry talks very frankly about his early years as a musician and how he was inspired by hearing Elvis’s early records on the radio. He had read in magazines how Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun records had made star out of Elvis and the book gives Jerry’s first hand account of how he got started at Sun and his elation at hearing Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips play his first record on the radio.
There is a good description of the Million Dollar Quartet session where Jerry, Elvis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash were all photographed together in the Sun studio in December 1956. That jam session became history and Jerry is now the sole survivor as his three colleagues are now no longer with us.
Jerry is also extremely truthful about his lifetime dependence on a mixture of alcohol and drugs. And by drugs Jerry does not just mean a few uppers, he lists a complete range of pharmaceuticals that he either swallowed or injected. He certainly doesn’t recommend that way of life and the book will serve as a wake up call to many musicians who think it is fun to dabble in drugs – only Jerry didn’t dabble.
Above all the sensational stories the book chronicles his great success as a musician. No other singer pianist has enjoyed such a long career. He has cut records across all the fields of popular music and has sold millions and millions of records from gold discs like Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On in the fifties to being a star with millions of downloads on YouTube and I-Tunes.
Despite being a consistent seller for over 58 years, from rock’n’roll to country to gospel, Jerry maintains in the book that he has never been paid properly for most of them. Yet he has never sued anyone for what is rightfully his.
They have tried making films of his life and various articles and books have also attempted to capture the essence of Jerry Lee Lewis but until now all have failed.
In the words of my late friend Glenn Sutton, who wrote 5 songs for him,
“Jerry Lee Lewis can take any song and make it his own, he is the greatest entertainer in the World, always has been and always will be.”
I thoroughly recommend this book and every aspiring musician should read it all and learn from it.
Graham Knight from Aberdeen, Scotland
Graham@knightsaberdeen.com
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
Rick Bragg's JERRY LEE LEWIS captures the very essence of the man behind the music
By Cyrus Webb
When you reach a certain comfort level with someone you are willing to tell them things you wouldn't share with just anyone. That's because you wouldn't let your guard down to someone you weren't sure had your best interest at heart.
In JERRY LEE LEWIS: His Own Story Pulitzer Prize winning author Rick Bragg definitely had the trust of Mr. Lewis because he allowed him to see and the very essence of who he is not just as an entertainer but a man---and we as readers are all better off because of it.
Lewis once told Bragg that he "had been lucky at everything, except life", but I think once you begin this book you will see that blessed more aptly describes the live that Lewis has lived, and it began at an early on. You see, Lewis knew that he had been given something special when it came to music. In the book we learn that while the world was experiencing war, Lewis realized that "his own world was just too small". He had to make a move, and by 1943 music was really his everything.
He started to actually visual success, though he didn't call it that or even know it to be that, and he shared those thoughts with one of the women that would later become his girl. There was so much I learned about Lewis in this book that I had never known. I never knew how his beginnings impacted the man he would grow to be. I never thought about the responsibility of being called the King by Elvis himself, and then living up to that. And then there was his private life that would become public, long before the 24-hour news cycle and the internet---and how he railed against it. Bragg writes this: "He really believed there were things in life that were the world's business and things that were his business, like the things that happened between a man and his wife. He believed it."
Experiences would teach him, however, that that was not the case. That no matter how much he achieved there would always be things that would create barriers that he would have to overcome---and he did overcome them, becoming wise and more seasoned along the way.
A true testament to what is possible captured by a writer that knows the possibilities of the human spirit, this book is sure to inspire you to keep on keeping on as long as you can.
33 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
WAITING AT THE END OF THE ROAD
By Franz Douskey
Rick Bragg is a story teller and JERRY LEE LEWIS: His Own Story, gives Bragg a chance to write about an even better story teller. Jerry Lee Lewis has lived a life fuller than just about anyone else: great poverty, great success, the death of sons, 7 or 8 marriages, more money than Jerry Lee knew what to do with, then the IRS cleaned out his house. Rick Bragg is one of my favorite writers, but he doesn't know Jerry Lee Lewis's ability to expand upon the truth. Rick Bragg is more like a stenographer than an author, one who takes the stories as gospel, and why not? Jerry Lee Lewis has an overwhelming personality and you have to be aware, because Jerry Lee could go from smiling, even at 79, come at you, although he hasn't stabbed or shot anyone recently.
The beginning of this book doesn't stray from Myra Lewis's GREAT BALLS OF FIRE, that exceptional autobiography of her life with Jerry Lee. But this book is a wild, wavering thing, pretty much consuming Bragg. The problem is that Rick Bragg is not familiar with the music, history and carrying ons of Jerry Lee. Mr. Bragg is late for the party and he doesn't know enough history to see what's tight and true and what is hyperbole. An example of this is how Bragg let's Judson Phillips, Sam Phillips older brother, off the hook. Jud was a wise hustler. When Jerry Lee's recording of "Breathless" was flagging, Jud came up with the idea to have Beechnut gum, Dick Clark and Sun records enter a deal where teenagers could buy a JLL signed copy of "Breathless" for gum wrappers. Only thing, the record wasn't signed by Jerry Lee, the signature was printed onto the label. You can go on eBay today and find sellers trying to sell "Breathless" believing the fake signature is real for $50.00 and up. Bragg missed a lot of Jud Phillips stories and how he wiggled his way to get air play for Jerry Lee's records. Bragg doesn't pick up the fact that Irving Berlin wrote "Waiting At The End of The Road" about 30 years before wrote Jerry Lee his version. Berlin's went: "The way is long, the night is dark", and Jerry's went "The way is dark, night is long".
Mr. Bragg skims or omits the details of Jerry's early marriages, including that pivotal one to Myra Lewis. Let me clear up a few things that are alluded to in JERRY LEE LEWIS: His Own Story. Jerry Lee didn't go riding with Elvis Presley naked on motorcycles through Memphis. Sam C. Phillips never thought that "I'll Be Me" was going to be the "A" side to "Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On".
There is a passage that says that Jerry Lee had to force is way into Sam's office to have his records released. Sam was releasing a record every three months, same as before. At that time, in 1962, Jerry Lee had a contract and refused to fulfill it. Sam had built a new studio at 639 Madison Avenue, a few blocks away from the original studio at 706 Union. Sam wanted Jerry Lee to record, but Jerry was having a tough time, the result of marrying Myra, his 13 year old cousin, and his bookings, record sales and income plummeted. Jerry has a great memory, but he has seldom hesitated to bend the truth at least a little bit in his direction. It's not a bad thing. He just likes to improve on a situation.
This book is thunder from the Gods lit by with heat lightning that can strike any which way, just like Jerry Lee Lewis, himself. It can't be helped. No other way to this book. Jerry Lee Lewis went through success and torment, and he created the music, chaos, all of it by himself. This book isn't the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, but it's as close to the whole truth as we're going get. A TOAST TO JERRY LEE LEWIS. No other life like his and a man who has taken a certain amount of pride in playing the piano with his ass and raising it to an art form.
Suggested reading: Great Balls of Fire by Myra Lewis and Whole Lotta Shakin' by J. W. Brown, a classic written by Jerry Lee's bass player, who was there when it happened.
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