Synopses & Reviews
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, Lewiss 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 Braggs deep understanding of the American spirit, and rich with Jerry Lees own unforgettable voice.
Review
“No writer is better suited than Rick Bragg to tell Lewiss 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.” < b=""> Ron Rash, author of < i=""> Serena <> <>
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“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.” < b=""> Kirkus Reviews (starred review) <>
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“Mesmerizing . . . IRick Bragg illuminates Jerry Lee Lewiss controversialbut brilliantlife and career in this captivating biography.” < i=""> Parade <>
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“One of the best rock biographies ever. Lewis has had his fingers in nearly every piece of the 20th centurys popular-music pie, and so Braggs biography becomes not just the history of the man but a history of modern American music.” Shelf Awareness
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“I loved every amphetamine-laced, whiskey-soaked, gun-shot page of it. Ann Patchett
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“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. < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“Theres plenty of richness in Rick Braggs retelling of the Killers life . . . .Bragg, a former reporter for the New York Times, hits all the legendary moments, both high and low . . . Worth reading.” Stephen King, < i=""> New York Times Book Review <>
Review
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. < i=""> Associated Press <>
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“An enthralling look at the birth of rock and roll and the ensuing life of its arguably most colorful exponent.” < i=""> Entertainment Weekly <>
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“[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.” < i=""> Dallas Morning News <>
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“This is epic Southern storytelling at its most gripping.” < i=""> Chicago Tribune <>
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“This is Lewis version of his own story, filtered through Braggs gift for language and his feel for the South...His Own Story casts one of rock n rolls outlandish lives in a new light, giving Lewis the voice in words that he always had in the notes.” < i=""> USA Today <> , four star review
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“Its Jerry Lee Lewiss unrepentant outrageousness that makes his life and this book irresistible.” < i=""> Wall Street Journal <>
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“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.” < i=""> Tuscaloosa News <>
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“Braggs account does not pull punches, nor does it need to. Bragg successfully grasps the meaning of Jerry Lee Lewis and the music he begat.” < i=""> All About Jazz <>
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[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. < i=""> Vintage Guitar Magazine <>
Synopsis
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 devils 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 Killers life as he lived it, and as he shared it over two years with our greatest bard of Southern life: Rick Bragg. Rich with Lewiss own words, framed by Braggs richly atmospheric narrative, , this is the last great untold rock-and-roll story, come to life on the page.
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.