Sun Records star, Million Dollar Quartet member and American music icon Jerry Lee Lewis died on Friday. The 87-year-old Lewis passed away .
The Tennessean reports Lewis had been in failing health over the last few weeks, and was forced to miss his induction in the Country Music Hall of Fame on Oct. 16.
One of the foundational rock 'n' roll artists of the 1950s, Lewis also enjoyed a successful second career as a country artist from the late-'60s through the early '80s. A profound musical and spiritual influence on several generations — on the entire zeitgeist of rock 'n' roll culture — Lewis authoritatively essayed everything from Tin Pan Alley to boogie-woogie to blues over the course of a 60-plus-year career.
Yet his work, his supreme artistry, was often overshadowed by a life that could be described as Southern gothic. His turbulent personal life included seven marriages and numerous well-documented controversies and tragedies, including the deaths of two wives and two sons.
Despite these many twists and turns of fortune, Lewis remained active on stage and on record into his 80s, long after most of his peers had either retired or died.
As a wild-eyed, wild-haired, piano-pumping 22-year-old nicknamed “The Killer,” Lewis burst onto the American cultural landscape in 1957. His career would be defined by his early work for Sam Phillips and the Sun label. Epochal tracks like "Great Balls of Fire" and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On," were veritable riot acts of rhythm, musical passion plays that revealed a battle between Lewis’ deep religious roots and his love for boogie-woogie.
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