JERRY LEE’S STILL ROCKIN’ HIS LIFE AWAY

In the last years of his life, the only thing that separated Elvis Presley from Mel Torme and Jerry Vale was his refusal to appear on The Merv Griffin Show. His once intrepid tastelessness had devolved into mere mediocrity. He dyed his hair for all the wrong reasons, and he prayed to the housewive's Christ. In the end, he threw it all away for a broad, and died with less dignity than Louis Prima. No matter how much mystery surrounds Elvis Presley, one thing can be said with surety: no king of rock 'n' roll ever did the Clam.

Elvis had a chance to, save his worthless \\(e, but he didri't recognize it. Oh November 23, 1976, Jerry ,Lee Lewis halted his Lincoln Continental at \ 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard—Graceland: the hermitage that Elvis had bought 19 years before as a gift for that woman without vulva from whose lap he had never truly risen; the hermitage that, sincte his mother's death, had becorhe that lap. Jerry Lee Lewis stepped forth from his Lincoln. He waved a pistol and shouted for Elvis. But ElOis refused to see him, and a Graceland security guard had him arrested and charged with public drunkenness.

Less than nine months later, Elvis Presley was dead at the age of 42. If he had not turned Jerry Lee away from Graceland that night, if he had listened to what the Killer had come to say, he might still be alive; for it is likely that Jerry Lee Lewis was prjepared, in the interest of saving Elvis from the wages of mediocrity, to share with hiiji the secret of eternal life, the secret learned from Hermes, for whom Jerry Lee Lewis is, was, and always will be the sole appointed Southeastern Regional Representative, authorized by Hermes to sin, to perform miracles, to buy and sell souls, and to make manifest through word and deed the truth that, "there is no part of the cosmos empty of demons'' (Corpus Hermeticum, XV. 16). But, no, Elvis would not listen. And now he is dead. Deader than Fun In Actipulco.

Jerry Lee Lewis, the Killer's first album since his deliverance from the bondage of enforced blandness imposed upon him by Nashville Producer Jerry Kennedy, is flush with the glory of eternal life. In "Rockin' My Life Away" (written by Mack Vickery, the author of "Meat Man" and the only singer to record a live album at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama), the Killer insists that, "My name is Jerry Lee Lewis and

I'm durn sure here to stay." And to prove that he is, indeed, here to stay, he sings, as no mere 43-yearold mortal could sing, invectives sUch as:

Yabettergitupoffyerrocker

boyyadontknowwhatyerdoin

Cuzahmamammyjumpin

muthahumpincatthats

movinhome

. In a version of "Every Day I Have To Cry," written by Arthur Alexander and originally recorded by Steve Alaimo, in 1962, the Killer invokes the names of his wives, Dorothy Barton, Jane Mitcham, Myra Gail Brown, Jaren Pate, and Charlotte Bumpus:

Look out nouJ; one more verse.

Once there was Dorothy,

And then came Jane.

Look out, Myra, you lookin' the same.

Come on, Jaren, you struttin' the stuff.

1 think I'll take Punkin cuz I can't get enough.

He then extends the ithyphallus of his Baptist love to all women,

among whom waits in white that fated wife-to-be:

Come on, girls, I'm a single man again;

I'm really waitih', waitin', waitin'just to hang it in.

The tender, often unsettling period between marriages is a fitting time to reflect upon life in general and upon the seasons of the heart ' in particular. In his recording of Charlie Rich's "Who Will The Next Fool Be," the Killer, allows us to share .his reflections as they unfurl in dewy poignancy like so many asphodels in the night. After revising the original lyric to "Who will the next stud be?," Jerry Lee engages in profound dialogue with his left hand: "Play your little lick on that piano, now. Gotta watch that bass-hand. It's tough. Mean." As the intensity of.the situation engulfs us, as we, like the song, begin to fade out, to drift in silent darkness toward that next cut, which may, like tomorrow—not to mention next , Valentine's Day—never come, the voice of the Killer asks us, as if we, or, indeed, any man, could answer him: "Can you imagine a cat with khaki pants On, walkin' down the street whistlin' this?"

It is of significance that, aside from "Rita May" (an obscure Bob1 Dylan single from the fall of 1976), all the old material here is from the years 1958-1962: "Every Day I Have To Cry," "Who Will The Next Fool Be," Roy Hamilton's "Don't Let Go," Chris Kenner's "I Like It Like That," Lloyd Price's "Personality," and Ray Smith's "Rockin' Little Angel." This four-year period represents the nadir of Jerry Lee's career;, beginning when he was banished for marrying his 13-yearold cousin and ending when he was signed by Smash Records. What he has done here, then, is reinvent 1958-1,962 in his own image. (Temporal revision is not uncommon among the immortals. It should be kept in mind that Shih Huang Ti, fourth emperor of the Sino-Hermetic Tsin Dynasty [255-206 B.C.], decreed the abolition of all previous history, and that Aldo Ray has thrice changed the date of his birth.)

An indication that this album is Jerry Lee Lewis's most serious work in many years—perhaps since Live At The Star Club, in 1964—is the fact that a mere minute and 58 seconds are allowed to pass before the Killer first implores us to "Think about it." Do, as the man says, think about it. Don't, like Elvis, pass up a rare opportunity to share in the secrets and the wisdom of Hermes. William Blake was right:5 "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." Just ask the cat in the khaki pants.