Jerry Lee Lewis

Starred review from October 20, 2014
Bragg, writing closely with Lewis, offers this rollicking, incendiary tale of the man who kick-started rock and roll and blazed a fiery trail strewn with heartache, happiness, regret, and memorable music. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bragg (All Over but the Shouting) sat down with Lewis over a period of two years and simply let Lewis tell his own story. From his childhood in Ferriday, La., and Natchez, Miss., Lewis chased music, discovering at age five his reason for being born when he sees the piano in his aunt’s house. He couldn’t sit still—”I come out jumpin’, an’ I been jumpin’ ever since”—and he conducts us on a journey through his short-lived career at a Bible college, his discovery by Cowboy Jack Clement, his years at Sun Studio—including that now-famous, brief session with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis—his seven marriages, his children’s deaths, his descent into drugs and alcohol, and his burning desire to play music above all else. “For Jerry Lee,” writes Bragg, “fame was a thing that sometimes flogged him and sometimes let him be; he was capable, in the dark times, of losing all sight of the good in his music, of believing it was evil, until suddenly things would be just clear and he’d see it all so much better. The thing about rock and roll, he said, was that it made people crazy bad, but it more often made them happy, made them forget life for a while.” As his song “Thirty-Nine and Holding”illustrates, Lewis hypnotizes with his tale, and Bragg stands back and lets him fly.

June 15, 2014

Having authored All Over but the Shoutin' and Ava's Man, two huge New York Times best-selling memoirs about his Southern upbringing, Bragg seems primed to capture the renegade life of quintessentially Southern rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, the first person inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "Great Balls of Fire," indeed; look for rare and unpublished photos.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2014
An iconic rocker receives a warm, admiring biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author. Lewis, born in 1935 (delivered by his father) and among the few remaining stars from the early days of rock 'n' roll, cooperated eagerly-if not always accurately-with Bragg (The Most They Ever Had, 2011, etc.), now a professor (Writing/Univ. of Alabama). The author begins with Lewis' earliest memory about the piano, the instrument he would ride into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and throughout this account of a most raucous life, the author returns to remind us of Lewis' enormous gifts as a pianist and showman. He began playing at an early age and has not quit, arthritis and decay notwithstanding. Among his fans and friends were Elvis Presley (who coaxed Lewis into playing for hours on end) and other luminaries of the era, from Buddy Holly to Johnny Cash. Bragg gives us lots of family history (Mickey Gilley and evangelist Jimmy Swaggart are cousins) and offers a gripping account of Lewis' early struggles in the music world, when he would sneak into bars to watch and listen, playing nameless places for endless hours, then finally getting a break at Sun Records and his two biggest hits, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire." Bragg admirably charts Lewis' yo-yo life: seven marriages (including one to a teenage first cousin), wealth and penury and wealth again, run-ins with the law (drunk and armed, he rammed his car into the gate at Elvis' Graceland), and battles with substance abuse (Lewis claims not to have been as big a drinker as rumor insists). Throughout, Bragg displays his characteristic frisky prose. When Lewis played, he writes, "the girls bit their lips and went against their raisin'." From a skilled storyteller comes this entertaining, sympathetic story of a life flaring with fire, shuddering with shakin'.

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November 15, 2014
Award-winning author Bragg could probably write about nearly anything, in his gorgeous and evocative prose, and readers would swoon. Here he writes about musician Jerry Lee Lewis, who made women swoon but also storm the stage and rip off his clothes, and who made men riot and swear and drink. Rocker Lewis was (with Elvis and a few notable others) the naughtily provocative face of rock 'n' roll from the 1950s onward, and, in a literary almost-conversation with Bragg, Lewis reflects on his life, performances, and choices. He probably wouldn't change a thingnot even his bigamously marrying his 13-year-old cousin, causing a rise and fall unequaled in American music because he was lucky enough to not only do what he loved, make music, but also make a riotous living at it. The book is a toothsome read: Lewis' reminiscences of the wild times, stories backed by others and headlines of the day, and Bragg's refusal to cosset what Lewis tells him. Fans of Lewis' music will snap this up, but those seeking an unstinting exploration of a true phenomenon of American culture will find it a fine read as well.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)