Episode 56: Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire year 1957. English Version.

00:00:00 - In 2022, I choose to continue listening to the rock podcast.

00:00:08 - Biographies, anecdotes, how the great musicians did to forge their spirit in the face of adversity.

00:00:15 - Classic rocks all time.

00:00:30 - Today we go almost 70 years ago, the birth of rock and roll, Jerry Lee Lewis.

00:00:53 - Finding classic rocks all time the most incredible stories and anecdotes.

00:00:59 - Bruce Dickinson want to see us and you know I mean first of all we love you know we love doing it it's it's really a kind of a privilege to be you know 51 years old I'm being able to go out

00:01:22 - Just still to have a voice.

00:01:24 - Let me.

00:01:25 - Well, it's felt differently having it's called orgasmatron.

00:01:29 - Rod Halford.

00:01:30 - I think are useful.

00:01:32 - Just because of the fact that with what I try and do, it's important to try and...

00:01:41 - Eric Clapton and Paul Stanley.

00:01:43 - But piano was inconceivable. I mean, you can't just go out and buy a piano.

00:01:48 - Or his guitar is much more accessible.

00:01:50 - I think I was very driven period. It was to compensate to make myself feel more worthy

00:02:02 - Subscribe on the Spotify and speaker platforms

00:02:20 - Jerry Lee Lewis was a legendary and skilled American pianist and singer, a pioneer of rock and roll.

00:02:29 - He is considered one of the most influential and important rock singers, and one of the most influential pianists of the 20th century.

00:02:36 - A revolutionary, who he used on the piano is a loaded weapon against a prudish and boring society.

00:02:43 - He was the author of the great classic Great Falls of Fire, which gave the piano, which was a secondary instrument, a central role in this type of music, he was also one of the members of the so-called, million quartet, the group that Elvis completed.

00:02:57 - Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, leading figures of the Sun Records record label.

00:03:03 - In a funny anecdote that I tell you, it was the year 1951 and 16-year-old Jerry had entered a school of the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal sect in Texas.

00:03:13 - His mother and the pastor of Faraday, in the state of Louisiana, convinced him that he was in the hands of the devil, by going to nightclubs, observing girls with unbuttoned blouses and dancing that effusive blues at Haney's big house, the place liveliest part of the black district where all kinds of pianists, guitarists and people related to the blues used to go.

00:03:34 - In an attempt to integrate Jerry into the church, one night the school officials asked him to sing the Pentecostal hymn My God is Real in the chapel in front of all his classmates. Before the attentive gaze of all, Jerry Lee, who already had a shimmering golden fringe, began to play in, shortly after his fingers slipped, he entered as if in a trance and started hitting the keys with a devilish rhythm. He stood up and, between gasps and screams, set fire to the song My God is Real. The next day, he was expelled from the congregation. Thus, his mother knew forever that her son was possessed by that music from the devil.

00:04:15 - Great Balls of Fire was written by Otis Blackwell, a songwriter who wrote many hits for Elvis

00:04:20 - Presley, wrote this song with Jack Hammer, who was at one point a member of the Platters.

00:04:26 - The song became Louis' signature tune, a perfect match for his incendiary and aggressive musical style.

00:04:32 - A person tells at least a little bit of himself in any song he records, Louis said years later.

00:04:38 - This song reached the top 5 of the pop, R&B and country charts simultaneously with, whole lot of shape and going on.

00:04:46 - Both reached number 1 in the country charts, and although it sold 5 million copies, which was less than its predecessor, it still ranked higher.

00:04:54 - Let's remember that all this happened in the year 1957, almost 70 years ago, appears a madman who plays the piano quickly, aggressively and excitingly.

00:05:10 - One of the many rock stars influenced by the song was Eric Clapton, who said,

00:05:14 - I remember the first rock and roll I saw on TV was Jerry Lee Lewis doing, Great Falls of Fire, like seeing someone from outer space.

shake my nerves and rack my brain. Too much love makes a man mad. You broke my will, but what a thrill, sings Jerry Lee Lewis on, Great Balls of Fire, one of rock and roll's earliest anthems. A powerful piano and an irresistible rhythm, the musician marked the path of generations of rockers.

00:05:47 - Classics, songs, all time.

00:05:48 - Well, I was about five years old.

00:05:49 - What can you tell us?

00:05:50 - What do you remember about how that happened?

00:05:51 - I stole them through my Steller Calvin and Mark Lee Calvin's home.

00:05:52 - They had a piano.

00:05:53 - They were the only people that had a piano in that part of the country.

00:05:57 - And I woke up this piano and I picked out a tune and I played Silent Night on it.

on it. And my mother walked by and was listening and she told my dad, she said,

00:06:21 - Elmovie, he's gonna be a natural born pianist. And he said, yeah, he might be a piano player. There's a difference in a pianist and a piano player. I don't know.

we're still working on that one. Well, I never figured a six-string instrument to compare with an 88-string instrument. That just didn't impress me that much. I was picking guitar pretty good when I was, I don't know, six, seven years old. I could picked pretty good guitar, but the piano was fascinating to me. I knew that was the instrument that I wanted to play and get into because it was the classy instrument. And it took a long time for people to get the piano put out in front on the stage. It was always somebody with a guitar in their hand, making a chord.

00:07:27 - As long as they can make a K-G or E and sang a little bit, they were hit.

00:07:34 - But to prove yourself to be a hit on a piano,

00:07:37 - I was hard to do back in those days in the 50s to get started.

00:07:43 - And Little Richard done it.

00:07:48 - I did it, and that's been a few cents then.

00:07:52 - Moon Mulligan did it, but I don't think they would put Moon out in front with a piano pickup and everything like he could have had the talent that he did have. He was great. I loved his music.

00:08:05 - Well, I said Otis Blackwell wrote great balls of fire for a movie called Jambery.

00:08:10 - And I recorded it. I didn't like the recording we had in the movie.

00:08:15 - So I come back and recorded it with Sid Stokes on bass, electric bass.

00:08:20 - I think it was this piano here, it looked like it, and it only was turned around, and he was setting up one bass following my left hand.

00:08:28 - He never heard the song before.

00:08:30 - Jack Clemmett took the cut on it, and I boothed back there.

00:08:39 - I don't remember who was playing drums on it.

00:08:42 - It seems like it was Jimmy Van Eaton, and again it seems like it was somebody else.

00:08:47 - The drummer that I hit there, I said, what do you do?

00:08:52 - He said, I play drums.

00:08:53 - I said, well, can you pull those drums over here and play them?

00:08:57 - And he pulled them over there, and we took one take on Gray Balls and Fire.

00:09:02 - I said, we've got the take now.

00:09:03 - That's it.

00:09:04 - Well, I think Rock and Roll, it was in the 1950s, from 1950 to 1959, were changed the whole world, and houses, and automobiles, and food, and boys, and girls, and schools, and churches, and everything. And Rock and Roll was a 50% part of changing all of that music. Everybody loves good music. And Rock and Roll was something they tried to keep down, to keep a certain kind of tradition they had going and they there was a few cats like James Dean, Elvis Russell and Jerry Lee Lewis that were rebel enough to come through.

00:10:23 - I let you love all I've bought as a smile

00:10:26 - You came along with me, now I'm heartin' at you

00:10:29 - I've changed my mind, this world is mine

00:10:32 - And the little red is just a red ball to fire

00:10:35 - Kisses the baby

00:10:39 - Feels good

00:10:41 - Oh baby

00:10:43 - Well, I want to love you like I love you

00:10:47 - But you're fine

00:10:49 - So kind

00:10:50 - I could tell this world that you might, might, might, might

00:10:53 - I could change my nails and that's what all I've done

00:10:56 - I'm real honest, but it's always fun

00:10:59 - Come on, ladies!

00:11:01 - It doesn't look great

00:11:03 - It's just great balls of fire!

00:11:20 - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

00:11:50 - What do you want to have some funny stories from?

00:11:53 - Come on, ladies. Drive the craze.

00:11:56 - Let this great, great balls of fire.