Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam's Town, Las Vegas, NV, 3-24-01Jul 20 '02 (Updated Mar 25 '05) Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Not So Great Balls of Fire I was in Las Vegas in March 2001 mostly for the excitement of the NCAA basketball tournament and a relaxing getaway. I had seen on-line that Jerry Lee Lewis was playing at Sam's Town on Saturday. I didn't have a ticket, but come Friday curiosity killed the cat and I couldn't resist buying one any longer. My in-room entertainment guide had a blurb on the show and said Jerry Lee was 65 years old. I had seen Jerry Lee Lewis 15 years prior in San Francisco and he completely knocked me out. He was an hour late; I read later he had flown himself to that San Francisco gig in a private plane. By the time he showed the rabid crowd chanted "Killer, Killer" in nervous anticipation. When he strode onstage in a black leather jacket and glared at us as he cocked his arms back and forth, we went into a frenzy. He sat down at the piano and just burned for 1-1/2 hours. Could he still do it though? Wetting my curiosity was a short two-line review I had recently read, "Jerry Lee ought to give it up, he forgot the words to two songs." With those conflicting expectations, I had to get down there and investigate. Sam's Town Live had just opened a few months prior at Sam's Town hotel/casino, a huge, sprawling complex. It's about a 2,000 seat concert hall and was nearly full. The band, as they did 15 years ago, started out without Jerry Lee onstage and ran through four perfunctory 50's hits. They were a four piece, guitar, bass, drums and Hammond B-3 organ, which was missing 15 years back. From the introductions I know that three of the musicians were from Memphis, the other from Nashville. They all looked close to Jerry Lee's age, maybe a little younger, so I assume that they have all either known him or played with him for many years. I would find out later what an incredibly accomplished unit they were. Then without much hoopla at all, Jerry Lee Lewis walked out and sat down at the piano. In no time my heart soared and chills raced up and down my spine as they broke into "Mexicali Rose". I had no familiarity with the song at all. What it was was pure down-home Southern soul, honky tonk rockabilly that would put wannabees like the Stray Cats to shame. I was completely mesmerized, I was so glad I decided to come, how could I ever have missed this? Let's remember that Jerry Lee Lewis was one of the original Sun Records artists in the 1950's, which basically was a rockabilly-country label which boasted Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. There it was folks, all the bonafide, inimitable, piano pumping, soul singing, original greatness just pouring off the stage, rock 'n' roll and country perfectly and beautifully combined in a way that no one else could ever imagine. It was a moment which I will never, ever forget. Sadly, it wasn't long before the show deteriorated. You started to see it first in Jerry Lee's banter between songs. He was incoherent, didn't make much sense at all, and often you could not understand what he said. Then the music really deteriorated. Early on in the show Jerry stopped completely in the middle of a song and announced, "Forgot the words." Later he did it again during "Georgia". At least two-thirds of the songs in a 1-1/2 hour show were not ended properly; it became routine for Jerry Lee to get near the end of the song and just abruptly stop playing and singing, leaving it to the band to quickly and unexpectedly stop with him. And what a bunch of musicians! What a display they put on staying with this incoherent drunk. Jerry Lee was completely the musical director here and it was obvious there was no setlist. He would ramble into the mike between songs, doodle a bit on the piano, then something would pop into his head that he wanted to play and the four would jump in with him perfectly. The B-3 organ gave them a much richer, full sound this time around. Jerry Lee sounded very drunk; I got the impression that this is a man who at age 65 has never stopped drinking and has completely pickled his brain. At times he was apologetic to the crowd, saying he had just gotten out of the hospital with pneumonia and so this was what they got. Another time he said, "If you can't do it, don't get up there, and if you can, well, you do the best you can." The low point was near the end, he actually said, "I'd keep playin' if it wasn't for my band, they sound like s---", as if to cover for himself. I saw the drummer grimace. Amazingly though, his voice sounded tremendous and his piano playing was at times spectacular. The greatness would often shine through the raggedness; the repertoire of honky tonk, rockabilly and country was astounding, even groundbreaking. Yeah, near the end he did "Whole Lotta Shakin'" and "Great Balls of Fire", almost a letdown after the flashes of honky tonk brilliance I had just heard. It's obvious that those songs were cross-overs for him, that he's really a country artist who seized an opportunity to become rich and famous. Which all came tumbling down when he married a 13 year old distant cousin and the press destroyed his rock career. I am somewhat amazed that his four band members would allow this to happen. You would think that such polished musicians would tell Lewis, look, you're just too disoriented, it's time to hang it up. I would bet that living the kind of life that Lewis has, he is flat broke and performing only out of financial necessity. I can only conclude that his musicians are friends of many years who are helping him.  |
| Read all comments (2)|Write your own comment |
