The Killer still shoots straight after 50 years
THE CD: “Last Man Standing” (Art1st)
THE ARTIST: Jerry Lee Lewis
WEBSITE: Click here.
YOU’LL LIKE IT IF…: you sport vintage coats frayed on the right edges.
SUGGESTED TRACKS: “The Pilgrim Ch.33,” “Lost Highway,” “You Don’t Have to Go,” “Pink Cadillac”
Ever since Santana’s “Supernatural,” people flash the stink eye at aged rockers who team up with still burning flames. But the guests on Jerry Lee Lewis’ new duet collection, “Last Man Standing,” hang on tight as the Killer himself barrels toward the wild juke joints and weepy watering holes of Louisiana.
The 21-track album racks up a who’s-who from the last 50 years of rock, country and blues from Buddy Guy, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard to Mick Jagger, Kris Kristofferson and Kid Rock. Everyone backs up the Killer in their own way and do it well with only a few glaring missteps: for instance, nobody needed to fetch Kid Rock and Toby Keith from the airport.
Otherwise, enjoy a sweet sampler of melodies. Lewis and Merle Haggard ring with free-wheeling bliss on the hobo ballad “Just a Bummin’ Around.” We can belly up to the tap for the tear-jerking “That Kind of Fool” featuring the ghostly wail of Keith Ritchards. Or take it to the rowdy streets with Lewis and Bruce Springsteen on “Pink Cadillac.” Even the insufferable Rod Stewart hands in a soulful croon or two on “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous.”
“Last Man” is Lewis’ first album in about a decade. Fittingly, the album opens with Lewis teaming up with Jimmy Page for Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” singing, “It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled…”
Granted, the songs on “Last Man” are all covers. And ’50s-style rock, though good, smells a bit musty even here. But the Killer, nearly 71, never slips. Sure, he slurs a tad during the studio chatter. But cut to the music and Lewis comes through clear and powerful. He pounds and slides across the piano like Eisenhower is still in office. He booms about love, loss and loose women with a vocal potion of youthful ego and elder wisdom. Consider Lewis’ hard-drinking, substance-soaked life (which probably aged him closer to 80) and this is pretty impressive.
Hearing such energy is a bit sad. Despite his thing with prepubescent relatives, Lewis brought his best as a musician. Yet his career — in the States at least — never fully recovered from the scorn and rejection heaped on him. We suffered the loss. The Killer kept on killing.
But the Killer can’t go on forever. “Last Man Standing” hammers that point home. The title alludes to the alumni of Sun Records in Memphis: Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Lewis. Everyone is dead save for Jerry Lee. The last man standing.
Rock and roll won’t die with Lewis (Chuck Berry, turning 80 next month, lives). But hearing an original sire of rock is like finding someone who speaks Latin as a first language — it’s not new, but strangely beautiful when authentic. Sadly, “Last Man Standing” could be a kiss goodbye from another of rock and roll’s native speakers.
– by Morgan Kelly
