Jerry Lee Lewis Lost and Found

Cover art by Jon Langford

"Life" at the Star Club single

Isn’t the currently honored format for carrying on too long about a rocknroll LP the 33 1/3 series of mini-books published by Continuum Books? So what’s all this business about a full-length tome--Jerry Lee Lewis Lost and Found, by Joe Bonomo (Continuum, 2009)--dedicated to, of all things, a LIVE album? Hasn’t Bonomo, author of Sweat: The Story of The Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, as well as his own 33 1/3 book on AC/DC’s Highway to Hell LP, gone too far this time?

Before you call overkill, however, keep a couple of things in mind: we’re talking about JERRY LEE LEWIS here, who’s got more rocknroll in his pinky nail than all your Pixies, Stone Roses, and R.E.M.’s--just a few of the subjects in the 33 1/3 book series--put together. Also bear in mind that we’re talking about Jerry Lee Lewis’ Live at the Star Club LP, arguably the greatest live rocknroll record ever made, and possibly the Killer’s own best album. It’s just too big, too loud and raucous and cranked on preludin for some slim, digest-sized booklet to do up proper.

Greased Griddles & Poodle Dogs: The Raunchy Rock 'n' Roll of Johnny Buckett, Roy "The Hound" Hall, and Others

“I’m a Griddle Greasing Daddy”... “Let Me Play With Your Poodle,”... “I call her my Eager Beaver Baby,”... Yessir, sometimes singers said a lot more back when they couldn’t come right out and say it all. Sandwiched between the pre-war era of explicitly nasty blues & hillbilly lyrics and the suggestive 70s country music of Tanya Tucker, et al, lies a body of raunchy RnR double entendre. A comprehensive survey of these dirty ditties could, of course, fill an entire book, and to dwell the subject for very long is to expand it beyond what fits neatly into a blog post. So today the GS brings you a quick sampling.


Now, Poodle-owners out there, ask yourselves, would you let Johnny Buckett and his Cumberland River Boys “Play With Your Poodle” “...I mean your little poodle dog”? While considering Buckett's offer, you might recall that it's a sort of two-for-one deal, because when you flip the record, he also promotes further services in “Griddle Greasing Daddy.” Originally released as a single for the Renown label, both cuts reappeared on Fortune EP 1330. Note how Buckett cops song-writing credit for himself, despite the fact that Hank Penny had already cut "Poodle Dog" for the King label back in 1947.



The moniker “Roy the Hound” was but a mask for the boogie pianist Roy Hall, who wrote “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”, and whose Coahutta Mountain boys had been doin’ the “Dirty Boogie” since the late 40s. Out there ahead of me somewhere is a more fully fleshed-out post on my main-man Roy Hall--like he says himself in “Bedspring Motel” ...“Boy I sure dig that Roy Hall on the piana”. In 1960 he cut one of the dirtiest numbers you’re likely to find anywhere in the Rockabilly ouvre “Flood of Love”. Personally, I like to think the listener’s shock is anticipated and embodied by the Big-Bopper sounding back-up singer’s shouts of “Now what you say?! A Flood of LOVE?!” Hall’s occasional employer Webb Pierce owned the short-lived label that released this slab o’ salaciousness.

While Johnny Burnette employs the double entendre in “Eager Beaver Baby,” ostensibly a tale of unrequited love interest with obvious connotations, Jerry Lee Lewis dispenses with this device nearly altogether in “Big Legged Woman”. Aside from its clever biscuit dough metaphor, the latter is a raw, unabashed poon-hound anthem. George “Thumper” Jones, on the other hand, sounds like an unwitting accomplice to kink in “Slave Lover,” putting away his paper and pipe with a sigh to go “uptown and downtown” at his master’s bidding.


In RnR, just as in blues, male performers didn’t hold a monopoly on the raunch. Wanda Jackson’s “Cool Love” comes on panting in red lipstick, so don’t’cha be no square. The Miller Sisters offer their ode to variety, in dance partners and lovers, in “Ten Cats Down,” while Barbara Pittman growls for it outright in “I Need a Man,” and Charline Arthur--really more of a western swinger than a rocker--expresses a certain self-sufficiency in “I’m Having a Party All By Myself.”

Cover Song Cage Match #1

Introducing a new feature to the GS: Equal parts comparison study and contest, the idea here is to locate original versions of a few songs and pit them against imitators in a Cover Song Cage Match. Hey, it might not be as fun as a chicken fight, but at least it’s cleaner, and you're less likely to break yr pecker. Anyway, if you want to vote on a winner on any of these matchups, just user Blogger’s comment tool below.

First up⎯Can’t rightly start a Cover Song Cage Match without this one, eh?⎯The Novas vs. the Cramps doin’ “The Crusher.” My copy of the original comes from Back from the Grave, vol. 2. Liner notes on that comp say this about it: “THE NOVAS⎯The Crusher. The height of intellectual psychedelia. These Minnesota Gentlemen must be the ‘precocious,’ ‘ephemeral,’ and ‘interpretive,’ teenagers referred to on the liner notes to the RCA/COLUMBIA collection MINDBLOWERS.” The Cramps’ version ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at neither. You be the judge.

Next, another one from Back from the Grave, vol. 2, the Unrelated Segments’ original version of “Cry, Cry, Cry” (originally released on the Liberty label) vs. the Cynics’ cover, from their 1990 Get Hip LP Rock ‘n’ Roll.



Finally, the main event on this week’s card, Roy Orbison & the Teen Kings’ original 1956 version of “Go Go Go” (Sun 242) vs. an entire tag team of challengers. You got Jerry Lee Lewis doing his version, which he called “Down the Line,” from the Live at the Star Club LP, from 1963. Then there’s the Killers’s cuz Mickey Gilley’s version, from 1965, likewise dubbed “Down the Line,” on the Astro Label (and yes, that one does play better than it looks). And the Del-Tinos' 1963 version puts the Atomic Knee Drop on it to wrap things up.

All right turkey necks, until the rematch…