Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story - Couverture rigide

Bragg, Rick

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0062078224 ISBN 13 : 9780062078223

Editeur : Harper, 2014

A propos du livre

Quatrième de couverture :

For nearly sixty years, Jerry Lee Lewis has been a monumental figure in American life. The wildest and most dangerous of the early rock and rollers, he electrified the world with hit records such as “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Breathless.” His music was raucous, exuberant, slyly sexual; his wailing vocals were grounded by the locomotive force of his pumping piano. But his persona and performing style were what changed the world: whipping his long hair back, he would pound the keyboard like a coal-fired steam engine, then kick back the bench, climb atop the piano, and work the audience like the Pentecostal preacher he almost became. Poised to steal the crown from Elvis Presley, he seemed unstoppable—until news of his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin broke during his first British tour, nearly ending his career.

Now, for the first time, Lewis’s story is told in full, as he shared it over two years with Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Rick Bragg. In a narrative rich with atmosphere and anecdote, we watch Jerry Lee emerge from the fields and levees of Depression-era Louisiana, blazing a path across Bible colleges and nightclubs en route to international fame. He shared bills with Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry, toured Australia with Buddy Holly and Paul Anka, and went Cadillac for Cadillac with Elvis on the streets of Memphis—even as both of them struggled with the conflict between their faith and their music. After a decade in the wilderness, he returned as the biggest star in country music, but his victory lap became a marathon of excess, a time of guns and pills and Calvert Extra. He crashed Rolls-Royces and Lincolns, including one he drove into the gates of Graceland; suffered the deaths of wives and loved ones; and nearly met his maker twice himself. Yet after six marriages, a long spell without a recording contract, and a bruising battle with the IRS, he overcame a crippling addiction, remarried, and scored his biggest hit records since the 1970s. Today, as he approaches his eightieth year, he continues to electrify audiences around the world.

The story of Jerry Lee Lewis has inspired songs and articles, books and films, but in these pages Rick Bragg restores a human complexity missing from other accounts. The result is a story of fire and faith and resilience, informed by Rick Bragg’s deep understanding of the American spirit, and rich with Jerry Lee’s own unforgettable voice.

Revue de presse :

[Jerry Lee Lewis] is quite simply one of the best books about rock and roll ever...Rick Bragg has turned it into literature, fitting in somewhere between William Faulkner and Jim Thompson. (Vintage Guitar Magazine)

“Mesmerizing . . . IRick Bragg illuminates Jerry Lee Lewis’s controversial―but brilliant―life and career in this captivating biography.” (Parade)

“There’s plenty of richness in Rick Bragg’s retelling of the Killer’s life . . . .Bragg, a former reporter for the New York Times, hits all the legendary moments, both high and low . . . Worth reading.” (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review)

“It’s Jerry Lee Lewis’s unrepentant outrageousness that makes his life and this book irresistible.” (Wall Street Journal)

“One of the best rock biographies ever. Lewis has had his fingers in nearly every piece of the 20th century’s popular-music pie, and so Bragg’s biography becomes not just the history of the man but a history of modern American music.” (Shelf Awareness)

Lewis has found the ideal biographer in Alabaman Rick Bragg, an author and former New York Times writer who understands the texture and cadence of Lewis’ life that started in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana near the Mississippi River. (Associated Press)

“An enthralling look at the birth of rock & roll and the ensuing life of its arguably most colorful exponent.” (Entertainment Weekly)

“No writer is better suited than Rick Bragg to tell Lewis’s story. The result is a biography with the memorable language and narrative drive we expect only from the finest novels . . . the best book on rock and roll I have ever read.” (Ron Rash, author of Serena)

“An iconic rocker receives a warm, admiring biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author . . . Throughout, Bragg displays his characteristic frisky prose . . . From a skilled storyteller comes this entertaining, sympathetic story of a life flaring with fire, shuddering with shakin’.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review))

“I loved every amphetamine-laced, whiskey-soaked, gun-shot page of it. (Ann Patchett)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harper
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062078224
• ISBN 13: 9780062078223
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 512