“He’s the last of the rock pioneers who just left”reacts Friday, October 28 franceinfo Philippe Manoeuvre, journalist specializing in rock, after the announcement of the death of Jerry Lee Lewis at the age of 87. “He had really succeeded in imposing a character”remembers the journalist.
franceinfo: Is it a huge legend who has just left us?
Philip Maneuver: Jerry Lee Lewis single-handedly brought the piano into rock. As soon as he touched a piano, something happened. He was a real demon of the keyboard, when he sat on his piano we have filmed sequences which are real fireworks. He had written his hits himself, it was very unusual at the time, a lot of people called on lyricists. He had really succeeded in imposing a character, he had this incredible cold rage, he managed to give concerts until an incredibly advanced age, the last time in Paris was fifteen years ago.
Jerry Lee Lewis shook up the music world?
There was Elvis, who was the detonator and then we saw the pioneers emerge: characters like Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, people who also wanted their share of this new action that was rock and roll music. . Jerry Lee Lewis is the last of the pioneers of rock and roll who has just left. The great rock and roll story has just ended.
Jerry Lee Lewis is also a legendary recording. We are in 1956, in Memphis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Can you tell us about it?
The Million Dollar Quartet. They meet all four, by chance in the Sun studios. And they play together, a little rock, a little blues. But it’s above all the gospel, those who grew up in the South, in Christianity, it’s rooted in them. Obviously, there was a very big rivalry between them. It was who would play the fastest, who would fill the biggest halls, who would have the best results in the charts. A competition that has made rock music take off. Jerry Lee Lewis, at the end of his life, was widely recognized by the greats of rock, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin sang his praises. Everyone was fascinated.
He is also the first of the rockers whose life is strewn with excess and outbursts? Alcohol, drugs…
And then he had the very big scandal that almost ruined his career in 1956: he arrived in London with a very young 13-year-old girl. We discovered that it was both his cousin and his wife. It was an incredible international scandal. He managed to resurface through country music. He discovered that in Nashville, people were judged on their musical talent, not on newspaper gossip. So he reinvented himself as a country singer with incredible talent.