Photo: Jerry Lee Lewis | By Charles M. Young, Rolling Stone | As his five Chihuahuas yowl inside the house, Jerry Lee Lewis shuffles out the kitchen door and rummages around the line of doghouses he keeps in his carport for the five gentle mutts who lie around outside in the yard. He is wearing only his underpants — bikini briefs, not boxers — and it appears that the most rock & roll of all rock & rollers might be having a senior moment.
“Go back in the house, Daddy!” says Phoebe Lewis, alpha female of his inner circle.
Jerry mumbles something unintelligible. Even in Nesbit, Mississippi (“Home of Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer”), nobody talks quite like him. He’s the Mount Vesuvius of vowels, which erupt deep under the surface and spew pure and unalloyed by consonants into the upper atmosphere. It’s like the guy decided in 1957 to enunciate song lyrics and otherwise use his tongue exclusively for swallowing food.
“Go back inside,” Phoebe says, “and put on your clothes!”
“Izza mah hlay, innih? Ah ih wah rou ih mah orz ih ah wah oo,” says Jerry, which means: “This is my place, isn’t it? I can walk around in my shorts if I want to.”
“The man here in the driveway is a writer!” says Phoebe.
“Ah o eeha riyer! Ah elina hroo!” (“I know he’s a writer. I’m telling the truth.”)
“This is the truth? Your underpants are the truth?”
Jerry makes a sound that defies both his daughter and phonetic spelling.
“Well, go ahead, then!” says Phoebe. “Make a fool out of yourself! See if I care! Go ahead and put on a show for all those cars on the highway, too!”
Jerry glares at his sole living descendant and marches to the middle of the driveway, which goes up a short rise from Malone Road. Over the white fence that surrounds his forty acres and pond, the headlights of the passing cars seem to be gaping at the Killer, who is illuminated by the garage lights as if onstage. Hunched but unbowed, after six decades over the piano, he flaps his arms, he jumps up and down, he screams vowel sounds at the cars, daring them to gaze upon his nakedness in the humid night air.
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Long story but worth the read! Catch it here:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/killer-reloaded-170923478.html
Photo: Jerry Lee Lewis (from his Facebook page)
The Killer Reloaded – A Last Interview with Jerry Lee Lewis
