Part of my long campaign to become a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator: the twenty-three songs I would play at the Vallico Sotto Star Club, if I were better at learning music by ear and could sing in the proper rock and roll style, which at present makes me cough. The instruments are in the building; what is missing is a band. If you can help, by playing, singing or transcribing, let me know. This is some of the most exciting popular music ever recorded.

Jerry Lee Lewis died on 28 October 2022, at home in Mississippi, aged eighty-seven, the last of the Million Dollar Quartet in the photograph below.

To get you in the mood, here is some of the only good colour footage of him from the 1960s, with Tom Jones on Tom’s own television show: Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Jones. They are only fooling about, but these are two great performers at the height of their powers.

Live at the Vallico Sotto Star Club, some time in the future

Records, film clips and television. Some of the sound is rough, and the CD is better. Headphones, volume at maximum.

1. Mean Woman Blues, from Live at the Star Club, Hamburg: listen.
   

   

2. Money, from Live at the Star Club: listen.
   

   

3. Lewis Boogie: the Sun record; and a very good impersonation by Waylon Payne in the Johnny Cash film Walk the Line, here.
   

   

4. High School Confidential: the record, with too much guitar for us; the opening of the 1958 film, the best piano-only version; live in 1964, teenagers going wild again; and live at the Star Club, the best live version.
   

   

5. I’m on Fire: the Mercury single, overproduced, the piano hard to hear; live on Granada Television, 1964; and the version he recorded for the 1989 film, an older voice but a good solo.
   

   

6. I Believe in You, for the solo: listen.
7. Hit the Road Jack. Required: three backing singers with very high voices, or gentlemen with a falsetto; and we lose the saxophone and the Mercury production and play it sparer. The record; and Ray Charles’s original.
8. Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, the song he played at his first public performance, at a car dealership in Ferriday, Louisiana, at fourteen; the title is said to stand in for a phrase no 1950s radio station would broadcast. The record; and a surprisingly excellent version from 1973.
9. It’ll Be Me: listen. It grows on you; love the solo. The scratchy rhythm in the background is a washboard, and the Academy has one, with metal thimbles.
10. Pink Pedal Pushers: listen. It always reminds me of one of my favourite Stray Cats songs, Stray Cat Strut.
11. Lovin’ Up a Storm: listen.
12. Rockin’ My Life Away: listen.
13. Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On. “No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’ for my money,” John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970. The Sun record; live on Granada Television, 1964, watch the audience; The Steve Allen Show, 1957, the television appearance that made him famous; and Dennis Quaid’s version in the 1989 film, which recreates it.
    

    

14. Crazy Arms, his first record for Sun: listen.
    

    

15. I’ll Sail My Ship Alone: listen.
16. Lucille. Little Richard’s original is better than Jerry Lee’s, but I can’t sing like that and probably nobody else can either; here he is live in 1963. The Jerry Lee versions online are all a little slow, so ours would follow Little Richard.
17. You Win Again: the record, the B-side of ‘Great Balls of Fire’, no less; and live in 1963. I can play this one.
18. She Was My Baby: listen. Comedy gold.
19. What’d I Say: the record; live at the Star Club, awesome; and Ray Charles’s original, so slow, and still awesome.

Encores

20. Wild One, for the trick of standing on the keyboard, as Dennis Quaid does it in the film: the original.
    

    

21. Lust of the Blood, from the 1974 rock Othello, Catch My Soul, with Jerry Lee as Iago. “Jerry Lee Lewis singing Shakespeare. That’s what this show is all about,” said Bob Dylan on his radio show. Jerry Lee in Catch My Soul.
    

    

22. Good Golly Miss Molly, live at the Star Club, just for fun, since we will never find anyone who drums like Barry Jenkins of the Nashville Teens, later of the Animals: listen on the album.
    

    

23. Your Cheatin’ Heart, live at the Star Club, a slow one to finish, because I agree with the reviewer who called it “a one man tour-de-force”: listen.
    

    

And Great Balls of Fire?

You may be wondering why it is not here. I find it a little over-familiar, and foolishly left it off. You should still watch Dennis Quaid, as Jerry Lee in the 1989 film, setting fire to the piano before Chuck Berry has to follow him; and the real Jerry Lee with Quaid on the set in 1988, still the real thing.

There you go. Hope you enjoyed it.