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This guy here, Jerry Lee Lewis,

some of you may have a problem with.

Many people have, actually.

There are reasons not to like him.

For example, he once slammed his car

into the gates of Graceland
with a gun on the dashboard

and may have threatened
to kill Elvis Presley.

And then there was the
time he fired a machine gun

over the heads of a bunch of people

to get them to wake
up and party with him.

But there are also plenty
of reasons to like him,

so let's try to keep this positive.

He was, after all, one of the
founding fathers of rock and roll.

Thank you very, very much.

♪ Come on over, baby, whole
Lotta shakin' goin' on ♪

♪ Yeah, come on over, baby ♪

♪ Baby, you can't go wrong ♪

♪ Honey, I ain't fakin' ♪

♪ Whole lot of shaking going on ♪

One thing you may not
know is that the Killer,

which is what he called himself,

quit rock and roll and went on to become

one of country music's greatest singers.

The Killer. You know, if you
look at Jerry Lee long enough,

that nickname takes
on a whole new meaning

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The Killer, he loved to perform.

Morris "Tarp" Tarrant
spent about 15 years

on the road with Jerry Lee, playing drums

and occasionally pouring the drinks.

From 1961 up to '76,

when I caught that armed robbery charge.

If that hadn't happened, I'd
have still been with him today.

I remember a time we was
coming from Fort Worth, Texas,

going to Oklahoma City.

We were 90 miles out

and had a flat tire on
that Lincoln limousine.

We didn't have a jack or a new tire,

so he told Cecil, our
manager, "Get behind the wheel

"and drive this son of a
bitch just as fast as it'll go

all the way to Oklahoma City."

Cecil said, "Killer, I can't do that.

It'll burn up the rim. It'll,
like, catch the car on fire."

Jerry said, "I don't give a goddamn

if it blows the whole car
up. We got a show to make."

This is when we was making
$200-$300 a night, you know.

"All right, any of you motherfuckers
that want to go with me, do this show,

"better get your ass in the car,

'cause I'm fixing to take
this Lincoln to Oklahoma City."

Well, he cranked it up.

He said, "Tarp, get over
there and pour drinks."

I said, "Okay," and he drove that car

just as fast as it would go.

And sparks was flying.
You could smell it smoking.

And when we got there,

the club owner called the fire department

to spray the car down
because it was so red hot.

And there was no rim there.

There was hardly... There
wasn't no axle there.

It was pretty crazy,
actually, but he made his show.

Let me tell you something
about Jerry Lee Lewis,

ladies and gentlemen.

I am a... rock and rolling,

country and western, rhythm
and blues singing mother.

He just, uh, knew he
was the greatest, man,

and he actually could back it up.

My dad would even tell
you that he was one

of the most phenomenal piano players

that there ever was.

Jerry Phillips' dad, Sam Phillips,

signed Elvis Presley at Sun Records.

He also signed Jerry
Lee when he was just 21.

I mean, Elvis was a great entertainer,

and I think he, you know,
will always be the King,

but there's no doubt had he not
married his 13-year-old second cousin,

he would probably have been
the king of rock and roll.

There's that. Might
as well get to it now.

I was the 13-year-old child bride

who was married to the wild,

crazy man, Jerry Lee Lewis.

My daddy, J.W. Brown,

he played bass with Jerry, and
Daddy's Jerry's first cousin.

We survived it. That's
about the way it was.

Daddy was probably one of
like 60 or 70 first cousins.

Three of the cousins actually
became pretty big names...

Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley...

and Jimmy Swaggart.

I have sinned against you, my Lord.

The three cousins, they
set on front porches

and played guitars and mandolins

and whatever instrument they had.

He lived down on Black River.

There was an old rented house
down there his uncle had.

Man, you wouldn't believe it.

Sometimes snakes would
fall out of the ceiling.

But somehow, they got a hold of a piano,

and that's how he learned to play.

They grew up

in Ferriday, Louisiana,

a dirt-poor town along
the Mississippi Delta.

We were very poor.

We didn't even have a bathroom

on the inside of the house.

Linda Gail Lewis,

also a singer and performer,

was born 12 years after
her brother, Jerry Lee.

Jerry would sneak off and
go down to Haney's Big House

and listen to all those great
blues players coming down

from Memphis, on their
way to New Orleans,

and they called it the chitlin' circuit.

And Jerry was definitely
influenced by that.

He was torn from the get-go

between the forbidden
world of rock and roll

and the word of God.

Jerry was out of a
Pentecostal background.

J.M. Van Eaton was also
a drummer for Jerry Lee.

Another J.W., J.W. Whitten,
managed the Killer for decades.

Jerry was going to... What's it called?

- Bible college.
- Bible college.

And, uh, he was playing piano

and "My God Is Real."

And Jerry said, "Don't you think
it sounds better like this?"

Up-tempo it, played boogie-woogie.

Well, the, uh, music
director slapped him.

Jerry Lee put his Bible down,

left school, and set his sights

on Memphis to break into rock and roll.

He told his daddy... he said,
"Daddy, I want to go to Memphis.

"This guy, Elvis Presley,
went to Sun Records,

"and... and stormin'
with a song on the radio.

I want to go there and cut me a song."

Now, we didn't have money for the trip,

so me and my momma and
daddy went in the henhouse

and gathered as many eggs as we could.

And they sold 33 dozen
eggs and came to Memphis.

Jerry Lee moved to Memphis for good.

Luckily, his cousin, J.W.
Brown, already lived there

with his 12-year-old daughter, Myra.

The first time I met Jerry,

he was really kind of
a funny-looking guy.

He had one tooth smaller than the other.

His hair was cut way too short.

His ears were kind of sticking out a lot,

and he just sort of looked like a
good ol' goofy country boy to me.

It was like, "Oh, hi there."

And Jerry meandered
over to Daddy's piano.

And I thought, "Oh my God."

Jerry Lee moved pretty fast
in Memphis, on all fronts.

He and J.W. started a band,

and the very first day they
set foot in Sun Records,

they turned out results.

Before we got out of the studio that day,

we had cut his first
release, "Crazy Arms."

Cut it one time, never
dreamed it would be a release,

but that was his first record.

♪ Will hold somebody new ♪

♪ But now I'm so lonely all the time ♪

Back then, we had a show on
radio called Red Hot & Blue.

And I heard it and, of
course, I started screaming.

And everybody in the
house ran to my bedroom,

and we all knew, this is it.

And it was just like a
rocket about to take off.

So here is the jolting,
jamboreeing, jumping Jerry Lee Lewis!

♪ Come on over, baby ♪

♪ A whole Lotta shakin' going on ♪

♪ Ah, come on over, baby ♪

♪ Baby, you can't go wrong ♪

♪ We ain't fakin' ♪

♪ Whole Lotta shakin' going on ♪

The Killer played the kind of music

you'd hear in Haney's Big House,

with an evangelical conviction
that was hard to resist.

♪ Come on over, we got
a bull by the horn ♪

"Whole Lotta Shakin' Going
On" is a naughty song.

It's a song about... making love,

or as the kids nowadays say, having sex,

which to me sounds...
absolutely horrible.

Just, you know, it
drove those girls wild.

You know, it was dangerous, man.

He was a dangerous cat,
and that came off on stage.

"This guy is dangerous.

"This is the guy you probably don't want

your daughter to be... hanging around."

It changed all of our lives.

We were holding our breath,

just waiting for the
next thing to happen.

♪ You can shake one time for me ♪

♪ Well, I said come over, baby ♪

♪ A whole Lotta shakin' goin' on ♪

In the early years, he was really torn

between wanting to go church
and just do gospel music.

He felt like it was
wrong for him to do songs

like "Great Balls of Fire" and
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On."

He was fighting that
back and forth every day.

♪ Shake! Oh! Shake, baby! ♪

Despite Jerry's very real
fear of eternal damnation,

"Great Balls of Fire" sold
a million copies in 10 days.

He celebrated by sweeping
young Myra off her feet.

He comes home and here
it is, and I looked at it.

It said, "Jerry Lee Lewis
and Myra Gale Brown."

It had "Marriage License" at the top.

I said, "Jerry, I'm just a kid."

He said, "No, you're not.
You're a grown woman."

"Oh, no, I'm not."

I was a little more
mature than Jerry was.

He was 22, and I was 13.

I was the thinking adult
in that relationship.

The next day, Jerry Lee told J.W.

he was taking Myra into
town to see a movie.

By that evening, Jerry's first
cousin was also his father-in-law.

Well, I found some rice in their clothes.

- In Myra's clothes.
- Dead giveaway.

Yeah, that was a big giveaway that.

And I said, "I'm taking my gun

I'm going up there,
and I'm gonna kill him."

I said... I was so mad

to think that my cousin had
married my 13-year-old daughter.

That was enough to make anybody mad.

It seems the money,
the fame, and the glory

of rock and roll helped the family heal.

All the sudden, everything
was just exploding for Jerry...

bigger shows were coming
in, more money was coming in,

and that's where the problems began.

Our booking agent then,

he had booked us on a
tour to go to England.

We thought we'd be all right,

but we wasn't planning on
any of the family going.

And Jerry said, "No, I'm
not going unless Myra goes."

Everybody was going to Jerry,
saying, "Please don't take Myra.

Let's just keep this private."

Nobody would tell me anything.

I didn't know to lie, so
when we arrived in London,

reporters came over, said,
"Oh, who are you, miss?"

And I said, "Oh, I'm Jerry's wife."

And he said... "How old are you?"

And I said, "Uh"... I did
know to lie about that... "15."

And all of the sudden,

reporters are all around both of us,

and it's like, "What happened?

What... What'd I do? What'd I do?"

I didn't know that this was gonna set off

an explosion heard round the world.

When they found out that, uh,

that was his second cousin...

but they assumed first, or whatever.

It really doesn't matter,
a cousin's a cousin.

Eddie Kilroy is a country music producer

who became a confidant over the years.

I think the one that really drove

the nail in the coffin
for him on that whole deal

was when they started
hammering on him about Myra.

And he said, "It ain't no big deal.

I got two more back in
Louisiana just like her."

He was like, "I cannot
believe these people

are so upset about something so silly."

Then it came out that
Jerry had been married

a couple of times before and
didn't bother getting divorces.

He married one girl, he
didn't get a divorce from her.

And then he married another girl,
he didn't get a divorce from her.

And then he married me.

I don't know what it is
about the people in Louisiana.

They just don't think
divorces are necessary evils.

When that awful publicity
came out in all those tabloids,

that was very hard for him.

And they were just heckling
and harassing him and all that.

And it just got worse.

We could not go outside of the hotel.

If you looked out the window,
every building around us

had people in the windows,

hanging out the windows, looking.

Scotland Yard said they'd
like for us to leave

because they were afraid
that they couldn't protect us.

When we arrived back to Memphis,

we were certain they were gonna be like,

"Come to Mama," you know?

Well, the papers reported that you
were greeted with silence over there

and with catcalls from the
audience. Is that right?

Well, I... I can't agree
with you on that, sir.

- Uh-huh.
- Our audience was very nice and very good.

Were you there, Mrs. Lewis?

I was there, but I wasn't at the shows.

- Oh, you weren't at the shows.
- No.

Did you notice anything like that?

That sort of reception?

No, it was a very good
reception, I thought.

Uh, when were you married?

- Pardon?
- When were you married?

Why don't we leave our personal
questions out of this, sir?

All right. Well, good luck.

Thank you.

Jerry had been making $10,000 a show.

He's back to making $200.

We were playing...

...chitlin' circuit.

Red Rooster, Bloody Bucket...

you know, them kind of joints.

They had chicken wire
around the bandstand.

Those clubs is his
stomping ground, you know.

He said, "I'll tell you one thing, Tarp.

I'm the Killer. I'll
make it back to the top."

Jerry and I used to go
downtown to the Malco Theater

and watch a lot of horror movies.

So we watched Lon Chaney in The Werewolf.

We got ready to leave,
and went out the back

and got in that Rolls Royce out there,

and we were pulling
up to the main street.

Well, this cat come
walking down the sidewalk,

and he was dressed in full
makeup and full showbiz.

Liberace is who it was,

and Libby always dressed,
you know, to the hilt.

Jerry looked at me, he said,
"You know what I ought to do?"

I said, "What's that, Killer?"

He said, "I ought to run
over that motherfucker.

There'd be one less piano
player to worry about."

I said, "Well, go ahead.
Go ahead, run over him."

He revved the motor up...

...put the car in gear.

He said, "No, I reckon I'll
let him live this time."

The Killer could be impulsive.

He liked to have a good
time, remembers Rusty Brown,

Myra's brother, also a
drummer for Jerry Lee.

Well, after a show, he expected

everybody to come to his room,

and, like, you'd either party there

or you'd go out to a club somewhere.

That was every night.

Then he rented him a...
a little office in Memphis,

so he could have a place to go to

till the clubs opened
back up that evening.

The cocaine he used and the pills
and the drinking, like to killed him.

Amphetamines, biphetamines,

what you called Black Widows,

the same thing everybody... Johnny Cash
would call for, everybody was taking.

We got to the point where
the colors were the thing.

"I'll give you two black ones

for one of the red and white ones."

That's the way that was.

And we... we never
knew at a point in time

what we were taking and
how much we were taking.

He'd been up, wired to the max,

for two, three days,
shooting up the joint...

...throwing knives.

Raising hell, you know?

So after like the third night,

people were falling
asleep on sofas and stuff.

And they were saying, "Jerry, we're
just so tired. We can't stay awake."

He'd bought a machine gun that
belonged to Machine Gun Kelly.

He got it from a collector,

so, man, he was proud
of that old machine gun.

So he picked up that machine gun

and just sprayed the ceiling
with all these bullets.

So everybody kind of woke up then.

Next day, boy, I mean, they...
they... they were having a fit.

He shot up a dental lab
that was next-door to him.

Shot up $50,000 worth of false teeth.

That was the end of his
little office right there.

Over time, Jerry was able to
climb over the chicken wire

and make his way back to the top,

in part by playing gigs on the bill

with some of his best friends

and biggest rivals, like Chuck Berry.

They were two really good showman...

Chuck Berry was a good showman, too,

but Chuck Berry had a
big ego, Jerry had ego,

and the promoter worked it out

to where one would close the show.

The next night, the other
one would close the show.

Well, Jerry, obviously,
didn't want Chuck Berry

to be able to follow Jerry Lee Lewis.

So they argued back and
forth, and Jerry goes,

"Okay, Killer, you know,
you can close the show."

So, Jerry, he goes out there and
does, of course, a great show.

It was right after he
did "Great Balls of Fire,"

and he pulled a can of lighter
fluid out of his pocket,

and squirted it inside the piano,

threw a match in there, and
caught the damn piano on fire.

He walks off stage and says,

"Follow that, motherfucker." You know.

It's hard to follow a burning piano.

Not too long after that,

the Killer's dad, Elmo Lewis,

apparently inserted
himself into the rivalry.

Elmo was kind of an outlaw. He
had been in prison, what have you.

Elmo, felt that Chuck
was degrading Jerry,

and said, "I'll... I'll
throw you in the Blue Hole,"

which is some kind of Louisiana
swamp name or something.

I don't know what. Had a Barlow
knife, and Chuck took off running.

And he was getting ready to go
up there and cut Chuck Berry.

There was no doubt about
it, and Jerry stopped him.

"Don't cut him. Daddy, don't cut him."

And then everything settled
down, nobody saw anybody,

but the next morning, come downstairs,

Chuck and Elmo was sitting there

having breakfast together
like nothing had happened.

While Chuck escaped unharmed,

the apple didn't fall too far
from the tree in the Lewis family

when it came to issuing
threats of violence.

Butch Owens, you know, he was
playing bass for us at that time.

He was mad at Butch, and he kept
telling Butch he was gonna kill him.

Butch walks in ahead of
me, and Butch said, "Jerry,

if you don't mind, we come to
get our money, our back pay."

And Jerry Lee said, "Well,
I got you boys' money."

When he pulled that pistol
out, I immediately exited.

I knew he was fixing to shoot, and I
didn't want to be in the line of fire.

Immediately, I hear bam!

Bullet fragments went through him,

right out his back. But was bad...

...was Jerry had just
put in new white carpet.

He didn't like it because he
was bleeding on the carpet.

So, they drug Butch outside

and put him on the sidewalk.

They were able to get him in a helicopter

and get him to the hospital and save him.

What a blessing that was.

But you know, Jerry fired him.

And I said, "Well, should we fire him?

I mean, I know it was an
accident, but you did shoot him."

And he said, "Well, I...
I've got a tour coming up,

and I have to have a bass
player, and he can't play."

Ultimately, the shooting was
ruled an accident by a court of law

and Jerry Lee was charged
with a misdemeanor.

By the time poor Butch got shot,

the Killer had quite a
following all over the world.

Despite Elvis, Jerry Lee was
living out his own personal dream

of wearing the crown,
King of Rock and Roll.

We went out to Los Angeles
on Jerry's airplane,

and we go out there, and
we go to the Roxy Theater,

and somebody had told me
that John Lennon was there,

and he was up in the balcony.

And we go out on stage to do the show,

and there's all these clouds

of marijuana smoke
coming from the balcony.

Somebody is smoking a lot
of dope up in the balcony.

So I go back to the dressing room,

and I'm sitting there with Jerry
and a couple of guys from the band,

and we're just sitting there,
and somebody knocks on the door.

Well, they open the door...

and John Lennon is standing there.

He didn't say a word. He
walked in that dressing room,

and he knelt down, right beside Jerry,

and he kissed the bottom of his shoe.

He didn't like the Beatles.

He said, "Every time I turn on the radio,

"it's a Beatle here and a Beatle there.

I don't like them haircuts there."

He had his differences with the Beatles,

Chuck Berry, Libby, and lots of others,

but the Killer's main rival
was always the King himself.

Jerry was out at a nightclub in Memphis,

he was drinking champagne, and
he was partying with some people.

And he got a phone call.

And somebody said, "You
need to come to the phone.

It's for you, and it's Elvis."

And Jerry goes in, and
he takes the phone call.

And Elvis was depressed and unhappy,

and Jerry said, "Don't
worry about a thing.

"I'm gonna get in my Rolls
Royce, I'm coming there,

I'll come and get you,
and we will go somewhere,

and we'll both be better."

Jerry's about half loaded, and he said,
"Well, I said I'd go on down there."

It was about four or five
o'clock in the morning.

So he pulled up to the gate.

Uncle Vernon walked down,

he said, "Tarp, how you doing, boy?"

"Jerry Lee, you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, we fine.
Good to see you, Vernon."

Said, "Open the gate. We're gonna
go up and see Elvis a minute."

Vernon said, "Killer, I can't do that.

Elvis don't want nobody coming in."

Made Jerry mad. He said, "I've been
knowing that boy since he started.

Nothing's changed far as I'm concerned."

And he had a... had a gun
laying over there on the dash,

a big ol' .45 or something.

And so they asked him...
says, "What you doing?

Going in there to kill Elvis?"

And he said, "That's exactly right."

Just acting crazy and saying crazy stuff.

Vernon said, "Jerry,
I can't open the gate."

Jerry Lee said, "Well, I tell you what.

We'll be back in a little while."

So he backed the car all the
way across Elvis Presley Blvd.

He revved the motor
up and put it in drive.

He just took off and rammed the gate.

We got all the way up to the house,

and Jerry jumped out of the car,

started banging on doors.

And every police officer
in Shelby County...

it looked like they
just came out of nowhere.

And they arrested both of us.

Again and again, Jerry
Lee turned to country music

to soothe the Ferriday
rock and roller within him.

He wanted to be on the Grand Ole Opry,

worse than anything in the world.

And it just so happened that a dear
personal friend of mine managed the Opry.

And I said, "Bud, Jerry,
he wants to do the Opry."

They really didn't want us on the show.

Roy Acuff throwed a fit.

He says, "Kilroy, I don't know.

This is a family deal, you know."

I said, "I promise
you, I give you my word

that he won't offend anybody."

So I told Jerry... I said, "Jerry,
here's the deal, Cartwheel."

I said, "No profanity, no vulgar moves."

He said, "I can handle it."

♪ One by one ♪

♪ They're turning out the lights ♪

He had vowed to leave rock and
roll behind five years earlier,

but Jerry Lee was just a man,

born to sin just like the rest of us.

When Jerry finished that song,

he looked at the audience, and he said,

"I just want you all to know one thing:

"The Killer's number one,

and I am a rock and roll motherfucker."

Then he kicked the
stool across the stage,

and Roy Acuff was out there hollering,

and carrying on, having a fit.

That was the last time we
played the Grand Ole Opry.

Jerry Lee Lewis is the last man standing.

He outlasted Elvis, Carl Perkins,

Johnny Cash, Liberace,
and even Chuck Berry.

That's one of my first recordings

on Sun Records, 1956.

♪ Now blue ♪

♪ Ain't the word ♪

♪ For the way ♪

♪ That I feel ♪

♪ And these little lonesome arms ♪

♪ Ain't holding you no more ♪

Jerry had such a natural talent.

He just had it all.

♪ I know ♪

It think he was just born
to do what he was doing.

He liked it, but he was conflicted,

because he felt he wasn't doing
what he was supposed to do.

But who knows what they're
supposed to do anyway?

♪ Crazy arms ♪

♪ That reach to hold somebody new ♪

He better than Elvis, Johnny Cash,

Carl Perkins... Liberace.

He's still the greatest
entertainer that ever lived

as far as I am concerned.

He was a rock star 24/7.

You can't just put it on and take it off.

You got to live it, eat
it, sleep it, dream it,

walk it and talk it. And he did.

♪ All the time ♪

He never killed nobody.

Never threatened to kill nobody.

He might have threatened to
hurt 'em, but he didn't mean it.

Wouldn't hurt a fly.

You don't have to believe
J.W., or any of the J.W.s,

just take it from the Killer himself.

Well, I wouldn't want 'em to
believe everything they heard,

because if they believe and
read everything that they heard,

I would be locked up in
a penitentiary for life.

You can't do things like they said

about Jerry Lee Lewis and get by with it.

It's against the law.
I'm really a good boy.

♪ Right now, ol' Killer's lonesome ♪

♪ All the time ♪

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