BEFORE: This is another film that's been on the list for probably close to a year, I think it also didn't make the cut last year because it didn't link to much, so I kind of just had to start with this one and a few others this year, and build the chain up around last year's leftovers. I think. But still, it's the big Summer Rock Concert Doc Block, so I'm going way back to the founders of rock and roll, like I did last year with Little Richard and the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys.
Johnny Cash carries over from "Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black".
THE PLOT: A glimpse into the complex life and thrilling, unparalleled performances of rock and roll's first and wildest practicioner: Jerry Lee Lewis.
AFTER: Sure, there are interviews here, but it kind of feels like somebody kind of forgot to put any information into this documentary - I suspect they had an overload of performance footage and so this ended up being top-heavy on Jerry Lee playing the piano, but despite his age fluctuating, that's all kind of the same thing, over and over again. Because despite the longevity of his career, I feel like Jerry Lee Lewis didn't have that many songs - it kind of feels like he had one song with a bunch of different names, because really, they all sounded alike. He'd tell us what was shakin' or that there was chicken in the barn or something, then he'd just kind of bang randomly on the piano for the next three minutes. Just me?
It feels like the director then noticed his mistake, because FINALLY there are some stats posted over the closing montage - but that's kind of too little, too late. But maybe that's because they wanted to hide the stuff about his six marriages, one of which was to his 13-year old cousin, when he was 23. I guess that sort of thing flew a little better back in the 1950's, or maybe not. To be fair, there is a joke from Bob Hope about him "adopting" his wife, but more attention maybe should have been paid to this at the (in)appropriate time.
The good news here is that you can just watch the last five minutes before the credits, and you can learn everything you might need to know about Jerry Lee Lewis - like how he outlived all or his contemporary rockers: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and of course Elvis. (I'll get to Elvis in a couple weeks, but maybe not in the way you'd expect.). It's also notable that Jerry Lee had a stroke in 2019 when he was 84, and he lost the ability to play the piano. But he re-taught himself, the hard way I suppose. Well, there was just no stopping the man, at least until he died three years later.
Over the years, people tried to cancel him, censor him, boycott him, but rock's first real wild child just kept on going, even when he was an old man. Forget rock and roll, he probably inspired the bad boy punk movement and then later rap culture as well, with all his crazy antics outside his music. He even pulled a reverse Beatles once, by going to the Star Club in Hamburg and recording an album right where the Beatles started, and you just know he kicked over the piano stool and climbed on top of the piano and well, you probably just had to destroy the whole instrument after that.
Then in 1968 he switched over to country music, because I guess you can't rock and roll forever, it's just not the place for old men. He had 17 top ten country singles by 1977, practically inventing the new genre of "hard country". I don't know where anybody could go after that - opera? heavy metal? But he was never really accepted in Nashville, he only played at the Opry once, in 1973. But after a few country songs, he slipped right back into "Whole Lotta Shakin'" and "Good Golly Miss Molly", because you can take the man out of rock, but you can't take the rock out of the man.
Original inductee into the Rock Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achivement Award from the Recording Academy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was touring in his 70's, I just wish someone had made a documentary worthy of the man, one that, you know, actually listed some of these accomplishments and wasn't just him playing the same stuff over and over again. Seriously, there's an unnecessary montage JUST of him being introduced on stage, and that means we get to hear his name like twenty times in a row, but come one, dude, we already know it!
Directed by Ethan Coen (director of "Drive-Away Dolls")
Also starring Jerry Lee Lewis (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything")
with archive footage of Steve Allen (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Chuck Berry (last seen in "Billie"), Tom Jones (ditto), Glen Campbell (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), Bob Hope (ditto), Dick Clark (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Bruce Springsteen (ditto), Fats Domino (also last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Elvis Presley (ditto), Don Everly, Mickey Gilley, Merv Griffin (last seen in "Brats"), Bryant Gumbel (ditto), Buddy Holly, Jane Pauley (last seen in "Brats"), Carl Perkins (last seen in "Under the Volcano"), Sam Phillips, Little Richard (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Robbie Robertson (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Tom Snyder (last seen in "Faye"), Ed Sullivan (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Jimmy Swaggart
RATING: 4 out of 10 issues with the IRS
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