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Jerry Lee Lewis once remarked “My only regret in life is that I’ve never sat in an audience and watched a Jerry Lee Lewis show!” On another occasion he said “There are very few great talents left… I’m not saying I’m one of ’em, I’m saying I’m the only one!”. The excellent new four-CD career overview from Salvo titled “A Whole Lotta Jerry Lee Lewis – The Definitive Retrospective” provides ample evidence that Jerry Lee has the talent to support this bravado.

The box set contains 106 original hits and rarities, beginning with his early rock ‘n’ roll tracks on Sun Records, through to the great recordings he made for the Smash, Mercury, Elektra and MCA labels during the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. There’s also an impressive 70-page booklet, featuring an informative extended essay by Roger W Dopson. All material was remastered by Tim Turan at Turan Audio and the results are excellent.

Jerry Lee’s Sun career started in very promising fashion, with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’,” “Great Balls Of Fire” and “Breathless” all reaching the Top Ten in 1957-58. All three are included on the box set, along with the best of the rest of his Sun singles, such as “High School Confidential,” “What’d I Say,” and his final Sun hit “Cold Cold Heart”. Several A-sides are missing, including “Let’s Talk About Us,” “Little Queenie” and “Baby Baby Bye Bye” but the most essential cuts are here and sounding great.

One of the great rock ‘n’ roll debates is how big Jerry Lee Lewis would have become in the 1950s if his career hadn’t been compromised by scandal. The star was on top of the world and about to embark on a UK concert tour when it emerged that he had bigamously married his 13-year-old cousin. The media reaction was damning and his stock fell dramatically and swiftly, with radio stations ignoring his new releases and television appearances cancelled. After several failed singles, broken up by the moderate hit “What’d I Say” in 1961, Jerry Lee signed to Smash Records in 1963 when his Sun Records contract expired. Smash was owned by future Sun Records owner Shelby Singleton, who had great faith in Jerry Lee’s abilities.

As the music on the remainder of Disc One proves, Singleton was right to believe in Jerry Lee’s musical abilities. The next four years saw the release of seven albums on Smash Records and a number of singles, but none had much chart impact. Gathered here are some of the best selections from that prolific output, including the singles “Hit The Road Jack,” “I’m On Fire,” “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” “She Was My Baby (He Was My Friend),” and “Green Green Grass Of Home”; several high quality album tracks, notably “Detroit City,” “Memphis Beat” and “Big Boss Man”; and a couple of tracks that were unreleased at the time, namely “Just In Time” and “Rockin’ Jerry Lee Lewis”.

With four years of limited commercial success, it was evident that a change of direction was needed. Mercury Records producers, Jerry Kennedy and Eddie Kilroy, thought that the answer was for Jerry Lee to make greater inroads into the country music market. This was achieved in 1968 with the great single “Another Place, Another Time,” which was embraced by country music radio and hit number four on the Billboard country chart. An album of the same name was recorded to capitalise on the success of the single and this yielded the hit single “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me),” which reached number two on the Billboard country chart and confirmed that the new direction made good commerical sense.

Both tracks feature on Disc Two of the box set, which provides an overview of Jerry Lee’s best work from 1968 to 1971. Other hit singles featured include the top five country hits “She Still Comes Around (To Love What’s Left Of Me,” “To Make Love Sweeter For You,” “One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)”, “Once More With Feeling,” “She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye,” (which was also the title track of a hit album), “There Must Be More To Love,” a duet with his sister, Linda Gail, on “Don’t Let Me Cross Over,” and the double-sided number one “Would You Take Another Chance On Me”/”Me and Bobby McGee.” There’s also a number of album tracks from several of the hit country albums released in this period. These performances reveal another dimension to Jerry Lee, other than the wild man of rock ‘n’ roll. He sells these country pop songs with real style, revealing himself to be a sensitive and accomplished vocalist. The trace of bravado is never too far away though.

Jerry Lee’s country success continued through to the mid-1970s, with producer Jerry Kennedy remaining at the helm in the studio for a series of hit albums and singles. Disc Three kicks off with both sides of the double-sided country number one “Chantilly Lace”/”Think About It Darlin’,” which also featured on the albums “The Killer Rocks On” and “Who’s Gonna Play This Old Piano,” respectively. Other cuts from these albums are also featured, with particularly strong performances on covers of Joe South’s “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” and his old Sun Records stablemate Charlie Rich’s “Lonely Weekends”. Disc Three proceeds with four tracks from the album “The Session,” including a solid, but perhaps a little tame, cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising,” a great rock ‘n’ roll revival number titled “Juke Box,” and the two hit singles from the album “No Headstone On My Grave” and “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee.” The tracks were cut in England in 1973 with a stellar line-up of British musicians, including Albert Lee, Rory Gallagher, Peter Frampton, Alvin Lee and Chas Hodges. For many years, “The Session” would be Jerry Lee’s best selling album.

Jerry Lee had used producer Steve Rowland on “The Session” and would next turn to Stan Kesler for the back-to-back albums “Sometimes A Memory Ain’t Enough” and “Country”. Kesler had penned the classic Sun Records songs “I Forgot To Remember To Forget” and “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” for Elvis Presley in 1955 and Jerry Lee’s energetic version of the latter featured on “Sometimes A Memory Ain’t Enough” and is on this new compilation.

Jerry Lee was back with Jerry Kennedy for the album “Boogie Woogie Country Man” and the brilliant title track of that album is one of the highlights of Disc Three, with one of Jerry Lee’s coolest piano breaks of the decade, and a fine rock ‘n’ roll guitar solo.

Disc Four covers by far the longest period of Jerry Lee’s career, spanning the years 1975 to 1989. After some fine selections from Jerry Lee’s remaining albums with producer Jerry Kennedy, including “Don’t Boogie Woogie,” “Let’s Put It Back Together Again,” “Middle Age Crazy,” and “Tennessee Saturday Night,” Disc Four proceeds with three songs from his debut album for Elektra, which was simply titled “Jerry Lee Lewis”. The album, produced by Bones Howe, featured a great band, including James Burton on lead guitar, and would produce the hit singles “Rockin’ My Life Away,” “I Wish I Was Eighteen Again” and “Who Will The Next Fool Be,” which are all present on this compilation.

Jerry Lee recorded two further albums for Elektra, “When Two Worlds Collide” and “Killer Country,” both of which hit the Top 40 country album chart. This compilation features the hit singles from those albums, namely the title track of the former, a revival of “Over The Rainbow,” and his last major hit single “Thirty-Nine and Holding”.

After a pleasing rendition of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” Disc Four is rounded off by four tracks from the MCA album “My Fingers Do The Talkin’,” which are all great but say nothing new; “Sixteen Candles” from the reunion album “Class of ’55,” which is interesting for the presence of Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins on the same track; and “Wild One” from the soundtrack of the 1989 biopic “Great Balls Of Fire,” which saw Jerry Lee re-record his old hits in fine style.

Summing up

In his excellent liner notes for “A Whole Lotta Jerry Lee Lewis,” Roger W Dopson says of Jerry Lee:

It’s hard to argue with that description, but this box set makes it very clear that Jerry Lee continued to make an impressive amount of excellent music even during some of the most difficult and at times tragic periods of his life.

These four CDs feature a superb overview of the best of that music, recorded during the most artistically satisying periods of Jerry Lee’s long career, including the classic cuts from his early rock ‘n’ roll days and his second career as a major country rocker. There is nothing from the legendary “Live at the Star Club” or his 21st century duets albums, but certainly enough here to justify the “Definitive Retrospective” description.

“A Whole Lotta Jerry Lee Lewis” – tracklist

Disc One

1. Crazy Arms
2. Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
3. Great Balls Of Fire
4. You Win Again
5. Breathless
6. High School Confidential
7. Lewis Boogie
8. Break Up
9. I ll Sail My Ship Alone
10. Lovin Up A Storm
11. What d I Say
12. Cold Cold Heart
13. Hit The Road Jack
14. Pen And Paper
15. I’m On Fire
16. She Was My Baby (He Was My Friend)
17. High Heel Sneakers
18. Just In Time
19. Baby, Hold Me Close
20. I Believe In You
21. Green Green Grass Of Home
22. Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes) (with Linda Gail Lewis)
23. Detroit City
24. Rockin’ Jerry Lee
25. Memphis Beat
26. Big Boss Man
27. It’s A Hang-Up Baby
28. Turn On Your Love Light
29. Shotgun Man.

Disc Two

1. Another Place, Another Time
2. Walking The Floor Over You
3. I’m A Lonesome Fugitive
4. What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)
5. She Still Comes Around (To Love What’s Left Of Me)
6. To Make Love Sweeter For You
7. There Stands The Glass
8. Don’t Let Me Cross Over (with Linda Gail Lewis)
9. Jackson (with Linda Gail Lewis)
10. One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)
11. Invitation To Your Party
12. Earth Up Above (with Linda Gail Lewis)
13. She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye
14. One Minute Past Eternity
15. Roll Over Beethoven (with Linda Gail Lewis)
16. Working Man Blues
17. Wine Me Up
18. Once More With Feeling
19. I Can’t Seem To Say Goodbye
20. There Must Be More To Love Than This
21. Waiting For A Train
22. In Loving Memories
23. Sweet Georgia Brown
24. Touching Home
25. When He Walks On You (Like You Walked On Me)
26. Would You Take Another Chance On Me
27. Me And Bobby McGee
28. Thirteen At The Table.

Disc Three

1. Chantilly Lace
2. Think About It Darlin’
3. Walk A Mile In My Shoes
4. Lonely Weekends
5. Me And Jesus (with Linda Gail Lewis)
6. Who’s Gonna Play This Old Piano
7. No Honky Tonks In Heaven
8. No Traffic Out Of Abilene
9. No More Hanging On
10. Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
11. Bad Moon Rising
12. Juke Box
13. No Headstone On My Grave
14. Sometimes A Memory Ain’t Enough
15. Ride Me Down Easy
16. I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone
17. Just A Little Bit
18. Big Blue Diamonds
19. Tell Tale Signs
20. He Can’t Fill My Shoes
21. Honey Hush
22. I Can Still Hear The Music In The Rest Room
23. House Of Blue Lights
24. Boogie Woogie Country Man
25. A Damn Good Country Song.

Disc Four

1. Don’t Boogie Woogie
2. I Can’t Keep My Hands Off Of You
3. I Don’t Want To Be Lonely Tonight
4. Let’s Put It Back Together Again
5. Jerry Lee’s Rock And Roll Revival Show
6. The Closest Thing To You
7. Middle Age Crazy
8. Tennessee Saturday Night
9. Come On In
10. I’ll Find It Where I Can
11. I Hate You
12. Rockin’ My Life Away
13. I Wish I Was Eighteen Again
14. Who Will The Next Fool Be
15. When Two Worlds Collide
16. Over The Rainbow
17. Thirty-Nine And Holding
18. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
19. My Fingers Do The Talkin’
20. Come As You Were
21. Honky Tonk Rock And Roll Piano Man
22. Why You Been Gone So Long
23. Sixteen Candles (with Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison & Carl Perkins)
24. Wild One (with David Kemper and Gerald McGee).

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