Jerry Lee Lewis, dead at 87.
Here's the obit I wrote on Facebook.
"The Killer is dead.
Chuck Berry gave rock 'n roll its riffs. Elvis Presley gave it sensuality. Little Richard gave it flamboyance. Buddy Holly gave it scope. Eddie Cochran gave it virtuosity.
Jerry Lee Lewis gave rock 'n roll defiance. Aggression. Rebellion. While the story that he once poured gasoline into a piano onstage and set it on fire may be apocryphal, it gained traction because for Jerry Lee such craziness was plausible.
The way he played rock and roll was violent. He attacked the piano. His vocals were shouted as much as sung. His songs didn't swing, they drove...like a freight train.
That's the Killer's contribution to rock 'n roll.
When Pete Townshend smashed a guitar, or Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire, or Kurt Cobain was photographed sprawled in the wreckage of a drum kit, or Roger Daltry swung a microphone by its cord, or Freddie Mercury wielded his microphone stand like a weapon, or Prince stood on a piano and stomped the keys with his boot heel, they were all just doing their imitation of the Killer. Every Punk band that ever sneered at an audience, and every Heavy Metal vocalist that ever screamed angrily into a microphone owes a debt to Jerry Lee Lewis. Maybe Jerry Lee didn't do it first, but nobody remembers who did it before him.
RIP, Killer."
