Lewis Jerry Lee, known as Killer, *29 September 1935 Ferriday (Louisiana), †22 October 2022 Nesbit, American pianist and rock and roll singer. As a teenager, he played piano in nightclubs. In 1956, he recorded several dynamic covers of country songs at Sun Studios in Memphis, and in August he took part in the famous session with Johnny Cash, C. Perkins and E. Presley. The new version of Ray Price’s Crazy Arms marked the beginning of a series of about 20 hit singles by Lewis, the most popular of which were Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, Great Balls of Fire, Breathless, Lovin’ up a Storm as well as his own composition High School Confidential. His string of successes was interrupted by a scandal that erupted in 1958 when Lewis married a 13-year-old girl. Most radio stations in the United States announced a boycott of his recordings. In the 1960s, he performed in clubs and recorded albums mainly with country music, although on the 1966 album By Request he included his own versions of Chuck Berry’s rock and roll songs Johnny B. Goode, Roll over Beethoven and Little Queenie. In the 1970s and 1980s, he toured extensively, performing a diverse repertoire ranging from rock and roll to spirituals. In 1973, he was accompanied by P. Frampton, Rory Gallagher and A. Lee, among others, on the recording of the album London Session, and in 1981 he returned to the microphone with J. Cash and C. Perkins.
Lewis is considered one of the top five white rock and roll classics. He represents a genre known as rockabilly, which originated in country music and draws on blues and boogie-woogie. In Lewis’s music, the piano provides the rhythmic foundation and is also the main sound component; solo guitar parts appear sporadically in the recordings. The highlight of his live performances was attacking the keyboard with his feet, fists and elbows, an abundance of glissandos, and prepared piano techniques.
