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- [00:00]
Dr. Claire Aubin
A list of sensitive themes and topics covered in this episode can be found in the episode description. Welcome to this Guy Sucked, the show, where we prove that it's never too late to have haters and you can't libel the dead. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Claire Aubin, and I'm a historian, writer, and most importantly, certified hater. On this show, we talk about people from throughout history with legacies that need a little updating. Whether it's because of their politics, their behavior, or their impact on society and culture, these guys actually kind of sucked. And we bring in a new scholar every week to tell us why. With me today is the wonderful Dr. Robert Komanecki, who is a lecturer in music theory and music history at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He's got a PhD in music theory from Indiana University and a very funny, in my personal opinion, social media presence. You might know him from some very funny TikToks, some tweets, all kinds of stuff. Although now he's Skeets posts. What are we calling those? He posts more on Blue Sky.
- [01:12]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
I hope we're not calling them Skeets.
- [01:15]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, I don't like that one. He posts on Blue Sky. Welcome to the show. Thank you.
- [01:23]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
It's great to be here hating with you.
- [01:26]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Thank you so much. I feel like we're at a kind of a good time in the world for hating, and there's a level of release that's happening with this. Hating on people is kind of a release valve. So.
- [01:38]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, I mean, we just had a Super bowl halftime show that was predominantly taken up by really, apex level hating. So.
- [01:46]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, also on the previous episode, which will come out at the same time as this one, we talked about the super bowl there too. So it feels like there's kind of a. We're in a moment for this to be happening. Yeah. Okay, let's get into what we're really all here for. And before we commence the hating, who are we talking about today? I've been really looking forward to this.
- [02:09]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Well, today we're talking about Jerry Lee Lewis, and I. I fucking hate this guy. When I teach. I teach a History of Popular music course here at ubc, and whenever I get to Jerry Lee Lewis and the History of Rock and Roll unit, this wave of visible contempt washes over my face because I just. I just can't stand this dude. But I'm looking forward to talking about him with you.
- [02:38]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Just as a sort of like, intro to some of this. I did a little bit of research going into this Which I always do. And this one, I was like. Like a movie character level of like, this guy sucked. Like, where everything I was reading, I was like, my God. So I'm excited to hear from someone who's more of an expert on this to tell me about specifically. More specifically, why he sucked, because I was just like, taken aback by all of the things I was coming across. But before we talk about the suckitude. Suckiness, we've got to sort of establish what the original, more popular narrative of Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lee Lewis is. Lee his.
- [03:21]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Oh, Jerry Lee is how people respond to.
- [03:24]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Jerry Lee is his first name.
- [03:25]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah.
- [03:25]
Dr. Claire Aubin
So then Louis is the last name. Okay. So we got to sort of establish why he's known in the first place. And in a lot of cases, I would say, as is the case for pretty much everyone who we talk about on the show, he's kind of venerated or held up as important historically in some way. So what kind of contributions to the world is he best known for?
- [03:48]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
So Jerry Lee Lewis is most well known as this real pioneer in early rock and roll. He has this nickname, the Killer. And he's known as this. This bad boy at the piano, an instrument that you don't often associate with bad boys. People talk about Jerry Lee Lewis like he's one of the architects of the genre of rock and roll. And, you know, his. His legacy. People always talk about what a jerk Jerry Lee Lewis was. You know, that part's not. Not really a secret. And he has this idiom that he often would say. He would say, I'm. I'm the meanest son of a bitch to ever shit out a meat ass.
- [04:37]
Dr. Claire Aubin
I'm glad swearing is allowed on this.
- [04:40]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. And I don't know, like, you know, somebody. Somebody was like, oh, well, that's a weird saying. It's Southern. I'm like, I've. I've been to the South a lot. I've never heard anybody say that. They're the meanest son of a bitch to ever shit out of a meat ass. But, you know, he. He had a mean. You know, to put it mildly, he had a mean streak. But people always talk about him and venerate him as. As a pioneer of rock and roll. This is a guy who wrote or who recorded Great Balls of Fire and a whole lot of shaking going on. And so that's where he gets a lot of his flowers.
- [05:16]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, I've never heard that expression.
- [05:18]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
And will again if you Google it. It's just Jerry Lee Lewis talking about his meat ass. I don't know.
- [05:25]
Dr. Claire Aubin
I mean, also, like, my partner is from Texas and says some real. Real Southern stuff sometimes. Never heard that. Not from him, not his family, no one.
- [05:34]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
You know, next time you're with this family, just try dropping that into conversation and see what the reaction is. You can really gauge if it's an authentic Southern idiom or if it's just Jerry Lee Lewis.
- [05:44]
Dr. Claire Aubin
I think they'd be having a serious conversation with my partner about breaking up with me if I said that at family dinner.
- [05:51]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Get her and her meat ass out of here.
- [05:58]
Dr. Claire Aubin
So in your research, what kind of role does he play in your work, your research, your teaching? Why do you think about him?
- [06:06]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Well, when I teach music history, I'm trying to teach a couple things simultaneously. I'm trying to teach about the rapid advancements of technology that happened during the 20th century. I'm trying to teach about the actual trajectory of these creative decisions that lead to formations of new genres, these cultural factors that lead to new genres. But then I also try to teach about the. The historical narrative that goes along with that that may or may not accurately represent how some of these genres were formed. And so that's where I find myself talking about Jerry Lee Lewis a lot, because in a lot of the literature about the birth of rock and roll, he's right there with. Right there with Elvis, you know, as like, the two kings of rock and roll. And I think that that narrative doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of who was coming up with this music in both of their cases.
- [07:05]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Well, perfect. This sounds like a good segue, because I think the who was really coming up with these things is part of the conversation about why he sucks. Let's move to the. To the sucking.
- [07:16]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Absolutely.
- [07:17]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Let's move to the sucking is not something I ever thought.
- [07:22]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
I think that goes on Dan Savage's Point podcast, not yours.
- [07:29]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Okay, so what part of. Well, what's the first part, I should say, of Mr. Lewis's legacy that you think is being ignored or sort of downplayed? Why do you think he sucks?
- [07:45]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Well, I think that, you know, we'll eventually get to his treatment of women and treatment of everybody, really. But when you talk about his musical legacy, Jerry Lee Lewis was. He's born poor. He lived in Faraday, Louisiana, and when he was, like, three years old, his brother was killed by a truck. I don't know if you've ever seen that movie, Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox thing, but they're like riffing on Jerry Lee Lewis's life story, you know, having a tragedy early on. At one point, his father, who's this big, mean snake killing dude. That's true. He was known for just bringing rattlesnakes out of their attic and just killing him dead in front of Jerry Lee Lewis. At one point, his father mortgages their house so he can buy Jerry Lee a piano. And that's the start. He starts really, really getting into playing piano around 7, 8 years old and around 11 years old. That's where he starts. He starts hanging around all black piano clubs and listening to black performers do boogie woogie and things like this. This is, of course, in the segregated south, right? And when you read these writings about Jerry Lee Lewis and these obituaries, you know, they all acknowledge that he was a huge dickhead. But they're all like, there's one thing that's undeniable, his originality and his, you know, savant level talent at the piano. And I think you can only have that opinion of his piano playing if you aren't familiar with what especially like black artists in the south were doing around that time. That's part of the origin story of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis as well, is that there's a lot of, like, black musicians around the south that are kind of paving the way. You know, people like Amos Milburn, Cecil Grant, Ray Charles is around the same time as Jerry Lee Lewis. Fats Domino, same thing. But then, you know, Jerry Lee Lewis is known for his flamboyant piano performances. He does all sorts of gimmicks and tricks. He gets a lot of credit for that being like an original shtick. But there were people like Slim GAILLIARD in the 30s doing kind of gimmicky, you know, playing the piano with your feet, flipping your hands upside down and playing chords with the backs of your fingers instead. There are black musicians that were doing a lot of this stuff long before Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis started up.
- [10:09]
Dr. Claire Aubin
And he's also kind of a contemporary of people like Little Richard, right, Who are, like, playing very flamboyantly but get heavily criticized for that and don't get this sort of like, cool, like, loud, yelling, fun white guy thing. Instead get this like, scary, ridiculous sort of reaction.
- [10:31]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Little Richard is so. Because, I mean, Little Richard is one of those, like those guys right there at the beginning of rock and roll. And his whole Persona is so funny because, you know, there's this. This period of time in Little Richard's career where he's very kind of light and effeminate and, you know, Little Richards was. Was more or less gay. I don't Know, he. He went back and forth, and at one point he said adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And he had all sorts of issues with. With loving men. But. But, you know, Little Richard, part of his Persona, that lightness and that kind of effeminate quality and the flamboyance is because that's what allowed white audiences to feel comfortable around him. White men weren't as worried about Little Richard stealing their girl. And so, yeah, that's sort of a different Persona there. Jerry Lee Lewis had this real confrontational Persona on stage. And a lot of men in his audiences. And if you watch the famous performances, there'll be all these guys crowding around the piano, shaking it. Everybody's sweating, their hair's flying everywhere. And as he's just kind of, you know, ramping the performance up to a climax. And that's. I think that's one thing he deserves credit for, is that he was a really. He knew how to work a crowd and really work them into a frenzy.
- [11:50]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. And I think you can definitely acknowledge that while also saying that he's not the first person to do this. And he is actually part of a tradition. And he's not the originator of the tradition either. Even, like, a whole lot of shaking going on, which is, like. One of his most famous songs is a cover of a song by Big Mabel, who is a black woman. So even one of his most popular songs is a cover of a black woman who's already doing sort of, like, rock and roll and blues and things like that. And so. Or to some extent. And so I think there's, like. I think there's something to be said for the fact that he is sort of touted as this person who is originating this stuff. But even the songs he's famous for are not all original.
- [12:34]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. And Jerry Lee Lewis was a stylist, not a songwriter. A lot of his songs were written by black artists and covers of black artists. And even the term rock and roll comes out of black Americans. In the early 20th century. Rock and roll used to be a euphemism for sex. And Trixie Smith, you know, had this song, you know, what were the lyrics? I gotta. I gotta check my daddy rocks me with one steady roll. And, you know, it was all about, you know, like, physical rocking around and. Well, first of all, that kind of helps throw into relief some of the panic, the moral panic around rock and roll as a genre. When there's the whole genres, you know, nicknamed after having sex. But, yeah, I mean, you know, black women like. Like trixie Smith and, and you know, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharp. These are like the originators of this, this genre.
- [13:29]
Dr. Claire Aubin
There's also one of the things I came across when I was looking this up is that he got his start or like part of what pushed him into doing this is that he would like play boogie woogie versions of church music or in church. And that was like this big scandal. So he real fairly early on that he could get attention by playing music scandalously or playing music in a way that in some way pushed back against the sort of conventions of not just like the day necessarily, but the conventions of the context he was growing up in. So like the Deep south, so what he was in Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Being a man who's playing boogie woogie piano in church is like a big deal.
- [14:19]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Extremely scandalous. Yeah. If you're a white person, you know, this kind of keyboard style that he was doing, this really rhythmic left hand and then this really busy soloing right hand. It was, that was, you know, par for the course, keyboard playing in black churches around the time, but not so much in white churches yet.
- [14:39]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. And then so from there he then what, go? He leaves wherever. Mississippi goes to Nashville. No, he goes to Nashville later in his career.
- [14:48]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, he bounces all around. He bounces everywhere. And I mean we are. He always ends up kind of circling back to Faraday, to Mississippi, you know, the Deep South. That seems to be where he's most comfortable. That's where he found a lot of his first loves. In the authorized biography, which is like the most sympathetic biography to Jerry Lee Lewis, he just casually is like, you know, my, my cousin is the first, the first girl who taught me how to really smooch. This isn't even the cousin, you know, from, from later. This is just like, you know, the first girl he learned how to really make out with was his, was his cousin. So the Deep South. The first time he married, he was 14 or 15, married a 16 year old girl. They separated within about 20 months. And he was, you know, in his biography, Jerry Lee Lewis insinuates that he had to separate from her because she just wasn't wild enough for the killer. Which is kind of a terrifying thing to think about for a 15, 16 year old kid.
- [15:49]
Dr. Claire Aubin
And on the subject of wives, he had seven wives. When I was looking this up, seven. And just for some background statistics on these wives because I was so fascinated by them. And I'm sure that's going to be sort of the next big topic of conversation here. He had seven wives, including two bigamous marriages. When he married his second wife, his first divorce was not final. And when he married his third wife, who we need to talk about a lot, his second divorce was not final. His fourth and fifth wives died while he was married to them. On the subject of smooching cousins, part of why his fifth marriage, I mean, it didn't dissolve, she died. But part of why it was already in the process of dissolving before she died, like right before she died. Part of why that was happening is because he was obsessed with trying to get his fifth wife to have a threesome with her own sister.
- [16:45]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
That's right.
- [16:46]
Dr. Claire Aubin
And then listen to this. Which is not bigamy, but still insane. His last seventh wife was previously married to the brother of his third wife. So he was married to someone who had been basically his nephew in.
- [17:03]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
I didn't even know that one. I swear to God. Trying to keep track of Jerry Lee Lewis's love life. It's like when. It's like when Tolkien gets really, like really going on like a family tree and you're like, oh shit, I gotta lock in because there is so much lore here. I need a diagram. I didn't even know that about his seventh place.
- [17:22]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, you need to like go back to the front of the book to look at the list that say and he begat him. Who begat?
- [17:29]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
- [17:32]
Dr. Claire Aubin
And those again, we still. This isn't even the craziest part about any of his marriages. These are just some factoids about what was going on there.
- [17:40]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Oh, yeah.
- [17:46]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Hey everybody, it's Claire. If you like me, think good, well researched public history that is in a format other than angry middle aged man yells at you about ancient Rome is important. Consider joining our Patreon. It's only one tier and for what works out to be less than1.75 a week, you'll get access to all of our episodes instead of just the bi weekly free episodes and they'll all be ad free for you. You'll also get exclusive access to what will become the full episode archive, bonus content and lots of other fun Patreon exclusives to sweeten the all of the Patreon money goes directly to me and my producer and editor so that we can keep making this for you. Either way, thank you for listening. We're so happy to have you here. So let's talk about his third wife.
- [18:27]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Which.
- [18:30]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Began in 1957 when he was 21, he married his 13 year old first cousin, Myra Gale Brown. What are your thoughts on this and.
- [18:43]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Let the record show, first cousin once removed. So his first cousin's daughter who he met the old fashioned way while she was around babysitting his existing kid. Yeah. So Myra, Myra Gale Brown, his child bride. I mean there's a lot to say about this. You know, unfortunately, eventually Myra ended up doing okay. Like she ended up in a really long good marriage. But yeah, everybody in the biographies that I've seen, in the interviews I've seen kind of makes excuses for Jerry Lee Lewis on marrying his 13 year old first cousin. They say that, you know, her parents left her around with, you know, with just her pajamas on and what's the guy supposed to do to resist? And, and Jerry Lee Lewis was, was super unapologetic for it his whole life. He said that, you know, she looked, she looked like a woman. She was, what's, I have the quote here. She was, you know, fully, fully ripe, ready for the pickin. Ripe for the pluckin'yeah.
- [19:48]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Blossomed out and ready for plucking.
- [19:51]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. And so you hear this and you think okay, maybe she looks like an old 13. And then you look up pictures and you're like oh no, that's just a child. That's a full on child.
- [20:02]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. And I mean this quote where he says she looked like a grown woman. This was 55 years later that he said this in an authorized biography. So he didn't ever feel weird or bad about it. It's not just like at the time he was trying to justify it. He later, despite enormous scandal, still didn't feel even a little bit bad about any of this stuff, which is wild.
- [20:30]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
There's a lot that Jerry Lee Lewis probably should have felt bad about that he didn't feel bad about. And yeah, a lot of people try to excuse it as saying like it was normal for the time and the place. It was not normal to marry a child 13 year old cousin at the time it might not have been unheard of, but it was still out there for sure. And yeah, you look at interviews with them because he would like bring her out to interviews. He was very defiant and yeah, that's a kid, that's a teenager for sure. He surprised her with a marriage certificate. He picked her up from school, she was 13, going to school. I think they met when she was 11 and yeah, picked her up from school. Hey, how was school? Anyways, here's a marriage license, we're going to get married. And one of the things that really fucking disgusts me about Jerry Lee Lewis is in there's this interview that he, he gives about, about Myra where, where he's, he's kind of making light of the fact that she wasn't a virgin when they got married. He's like, only I could, could marry a 13 year old and she wasn't, wouldn't be a virgin, but she wasn't a virgin because she got raped by their next door neighbor. Like, and he's, he's talking about it like, oh, just my luck. Found a 13 year old but not even a virgin. Like, this dude is like, like that is, that is some evil shit. And yeah, I mean, so he, he married Myra and then this is right as his career's kind of taken off and he goes over on this big tour to England and they're really excited to see these, these bad boy rock and rollers from America in England. And he brings her with and reporters start asking like, hey, who's that kid with you? He says, oh, she's, she's my cousin. True. And they say, how old is she? She's about 15. That's this, that's like the lie that he decided to go with because he thought that they'd be like a little bit more chill about it if she was almost, almost 16 was the rationale there. So he lied about how old she was and he kind of obscured the fact that they were married for a minute. But then quickly people found out and it blew up in his face and it really kind of nuked his career for like a decade. Because one of the first big, the first big purveyors of rock and roll over across the pond ended up being married to his child cousin.
- [22:54]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, one of the things I also saw was that he also claimed that he married her because it made it more socially okay that he had been. They'd already been messing around is the, is the phrase he used. But they'd already been messing around, so he had to marry her to make it okay that the issue was not. And when I say messing around, obviously we're talking about statutory rape and just rape in general. This is an adult man and a child. When he says this, what he's saying is it's the marriage that makes it okay. It's not that there's any sort of moral issue or ethical issue around any of this. It's that it was bad. Not that he was messing around with his child cousin, but that he was messing around with his unmarried child cousin. And again, he is also married while this is happening.
- [23:45]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yes.
- [23:46]
Dr. Claire Aubin
So it's not like he's single and doing this, he's married. So there are like so many other levels of just like to all of this. Like just like disgusting, like horrible levels to this.
- [23:57]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, he had a strange idea about what marriage was, I think because you know, his, his second wife too. It was like he was messing around with her and then her family found out and so he's like, oh shit, better get married really quick. Like that makes it okay. And that's part of the reason why he ended up getting married while still, you know, got married bigamously. So yeah, you know, he had a religious upbringing. He was a very God fearing man and he would kind of like abruptly, you know, erupt into sermons, sometimes backstage and tell people whether or not they were going to hell. And so yeah, I think he had some kind of religious hangups around marriage, but maybe he should have had a few more religious hang ups.
- [24:41]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Well, yeah. What do you think about what all of this says about sort of permissibility around really like not just like kind of questionable behavior, like what we would consider to be really, really poor behavior for people who are celebrities, particularly in like the music industry. Although this happens all over the place. But we see this now constantly and it's been the case for, for a long time. What do you think about this level of permissibility that sort of permeates all of this?
- [25:11]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, you know, so I can give my perspective on it. Being a music professor, you see this a lot and it's, it's always with, it's always with guys, it's not really with women, but, but there will be some, some guy who's like a monster and he's, you know, abusive to people around him. He's, you know, predatory and people, you know, people will be like, yeah, this is all true, but he has this undeniable precious talent that you know, like that, that kind of is just bringing him over the finish line. Like, you know, he may have had some, some troubles, you know, troubles like marrying and then physically abusing and impregnating his 13 year old cousin. But you know, he was still, he had this, this God given amazing talent. So I hear it all the time with music people in the classical music world. It happens all the time. There will be some, some guy that you know, is, turns out to be awful, but people are like, oh my God, he was so good when he conducted Beethoven's 7th or whatever. And I've just never, I don't know, like the, the talent never really seems like it's, it's that amazing that you should just Be like, you know, forgetting about all of the abuse. And I mean, there was. It was just constant throughout his life. Like, everybody that interacted with Jerry Lee Lewis has some sort of story about even, you know, like a really. A really brief interaction with somebody at a rock club. You know, Jerry Lee Lewis informed him that he sucked and his band sucked and he was in the wrong business. Or, you know, he would be backstage and he would do this thing where he would, like, pretend like he was going to hit people and then pull away at the last second and, like, you know, just. Just like a huge pain in the.
- [26:52]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Ass, like, serious sort of teenage boy shit. Like, the stuff that, like a teenage boy that really annoys you does, where you're like, why are you like this? And it's bad enough that the. The New York magazine slash, like, Vulture, I think obituary of him is literally titled Jerry Lee Lewis was an SOB to the end.
- [27:12]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yes.
- [27:13]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Like. Like, it's bad enough that his obituary is like, I don't know about this guy. Basically, like, it's so rare that we have celebrities that are like, bad enough that even though they make all these contributions and do all this. Do whatever important stuff, become, you know, for him, one of the members of the first induction class for the Rock and Rol hall of Fame. All of this stuff, and we still are, like, even when he dies. I don't know about. I don't know about that guy.
- [27:47]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. I mean, almost everybody he worked with, you know, was. Almost everybody he worked with thought he was a huge asshole. There are, I mean, countless stories. There was one. One story where he was playing at a club and he didn't like the piano that they gave him. Piano is one of those instruments that it's. You know, if you're a touring musician, you just got to kind of deal with whatever you're given because they're huge and hard to move around. He didn't like the piano he was given, so he just pushed the piano out of the club and. Because they have wheels, right? And was playing it as he was pushing it down the street. And then he just pushed it off this dock into the ocean, you know, like, he. He got into a fight with Chuck Berry, called Chuck Berry the N word. He slapped Janis Joplin. Janis Joplin was like, you know, everybody was partying and carrying on, and Janis Joplin was. Was drunk like everybody else. And Jerry Lee Lewis was apparently so freaked out that there was a woman drunk that he said, if you want to act like a man, I'll treat You like one and he slapped her across the face. When you recorded albums with him, he was a dick to all of the sound engineers. You know, he would just kind of play whatever he had in mind. He would not show up because he was too loaded to show up at the studio. He, you know, in hotels, if he, if he was having, having fun and didn't want to, you know, leave a conversation, he would just turn around and take a leak on the wall of the hotel instead of use the bathroom. Like, this is like Neanderthal. Yeah. So was a huge pain in the ass.
- [29:20]
Dr. Claire Aubin
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- [30:41]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
It's the other one. I can, I can help with this, please. So, yeah, it turns out the killer nickname might be more apt than, than we first thought. But, so, yeah, the fourth wife, she, she died in, you know, she drowned in this friend's swimming pool. And, you know, she was on drugs when she drowned and Jerry Lee Lewis wasn't around. And so the main suspicious thing though was that this conveniently happened a few days before her divorce settlement was supposed to come through. And so that kind of like, you know, raised some eyebrows. The fifth wife, though, my God. I mean, so they were only married for like, I think 70 something days before she died. And, you know, she was, she was young, there was the kind of a setup thing, and right away it was a rocky relationship. You know, people that were around them describe Jerry Lee Lewis, you know, smacking her and dragging her down the hallway and getting angry because she didn't want to have group sex. Right. And at one point, you know, she was really fed up with him. And she said, you know, I'm going to leave you if you keep acting like this. And what Jerry Lee Lewis is alleged to have said is, you're my wife. I'll kill you before you leave me. And then a few days later, she died the way that she died. You know, there was a 911 call. You know, Ms. Lewis is unconscious in the room. The police come out there. They notice that she has some bruises on her. She may or may not have had contusions around her neck. She has blood on her robe. And Jerry Lee Lewis comes out. He's got blood on him. A few days earlier, he threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave. And then, you know, rumor was that she was trying to figure out a way to leave him. It's not looking good, right? Like, this is. It looks like he might have, you know, he might have killed. Killed her. And Rolling Stone put out this big, you know, this big article essentially accusing or connecting the dots that, you know, this should not have been dismissed as quickly as it was because he did have to sit in front of a jury and they acquitted him of everything. But people in the know, in that region said that there was, you know, Jerry Lee Lewis knew enough people in the law and in the local government that there was just essentially no way that he would face any sort of consequence. He wouldn't be convicted. It would be like. It would be like convicting Elvis in Graceland is what. Is what people said.
- [33:05]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. I mean, and it's also like, all of his wives said that he abused them.
- [33:10]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, every single one.
- [33:12]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Again, we were talking about, like, a Tudor King number of wives, like seven wives. All were like, you know, and. And so it's pretty appalling that after this is happening, too, like, after all of this happens, that's when he gets inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. Right. That's when. Because he gets inducted, what, in the. In the 80s, when it first becomes a thing, is the first class of people inducted. He gets the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. And I'm not necessarily someone who says, like, we shouldn't listen to anyone's music if we don't like them. We shouldn't view their art. We shouldn't. Whatever. I think that's a totally personal choice. Should we be giving Them lifetime achievement awards. I would say no. I would say there's a way to engage with someone's art if you really believe in sort of fundamentally in the separation of the art from the art artist, which, again, a totally personal, individual choice. If you believe you can do that. Do we need to put them on a pedestal after it's very, very well known what their. What their behavior looked like? I think. No. I think that's a choice that we can collectively make as a. As a society, and that's part of why it's important that we talk about this stuff.
- [34:25]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you. And, you know, I've met. I've always had trouble doing the separate. Separate the art from the artist thing. There are some artists that I like whose sort of personal lives have soured me a bit on their music. Like, I don't return to them as much. You know, like, when I was a kid, I loved Kanye West's first couple albums, and now I'm just like, man, I can't go back to those. Like, they just don't feel the same anymore. And so, that being said, even if Jerry Lee Lewis was, like, the nicest dude in the world, I still don't think that personally, I would get a ton of. I would have a ton of love for his music. It's. It's just. It's never struck me as. As that kind of, you know, this seismic shift that people describe it as in the. In the 50s.
- [35:13]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. I think there's also something to be said for the fact that despite all of this fame and all of that, he's still kind of remembered for, like, two songs mostly. Like, he's remembered for a lot of other things, too. But really, if you're like, what's he famous for? You'll say Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lot of Shaking Going on, which we've already established. One of those is a cover, and it's. Those are, I think, absolutely wonderful songs. Great music, really important. Are important to the. Sure, sure, there's something. But they're important to the musical canon. However, the idea that they are such a seismic shift that they eclipse every other part of his personality and his life that we've just established is, like, pretty worrisome. Is itself also kind of worrisome. I mean, there's also. We haven't even talked about, like, he has some sort of, like, racial issues, too.
- [36:07]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
This dude has so many racial hangups, it's insane. I mean, anybody with any sort of training in music and any ear on them at all would be able to tell you that he's being influenced by black blues players in the South. And I mean, like, that's just obviously. And yet whenever he's interviewed, he only credits, like, white singers as his inspiration. And he's really firm about. I say this in present tense, even though he's passed away. But, you know, like, he was always really firm about his piano playing being his own thing. And, you know, if you go back and you look at some of these people, like Cecil Grant and Fats Domino and Amos Milburn, that's just not true. Like, that's not. His piano playing is good, but it's not this, like, original spark he did not create. He did not breathe this life into rock and roll that I think a lot of people give him credit for.
- [37:06]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Like, obviously, that's just sort of inherently racist in and of itself. Like this idea that you should be claiming credit for. I mean, even just objectively, if he's learning this from play, like hanging out in black boogie woogie and blues places, like, he knows that that's not where he got this from. Like, he knows he didn't. This didn't just sort of, like, emerge organically from him. Right? Like, that's part of this. And then he's also unwilling to credit them. He is, like, using the N word on people pretty regularly also, like, not just Chuck Berry. There's a lot sort of to this.
- [37:41]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
I mean, his ego was just too big, I think, to allow, you know, he. And this is the thing that really, really pisses me off about Jerry Lee Lewis is that he's. He's always contradicting himself. You know, one minute he'll acknowledge where. Where he got some of his musical influences from, the next minute he'll just trash it all and say it was all him. This. This massive ego. He notoriously, like, refused to do anything other than close out a show. Like, he wanted to be the last person on. And there's this anecdote of the time where they said that, you know, Chuck Berry was going to be the last performer on stage. And Jerry Lee Lewis was so pissed off that he closed the show by lighting his piano on fire and, you know, stomped off stage saying, you know, let's see it follow that. And, you know, various versions of the stories have racial epithets in there, but, yeah, he just. His ego is so big, and yet he was so unable to, you know, take responsibility for his own. For his own actions. After this whole thing with his cousin, you know, when shit hit the fan with that. And he essentially. He was almost deported out of England. They were so freaked out. But when he came back to the U.S. he wrote this really mealy mouthed, pathetic open letter to the music industry where he's just going on, I have it pulled up here. I have in recent weeks been the apparent center of a fantastic amount of publicity and of which none has been good. But there must be a little good even in the worst people. And according to the press releases originating in London, I am the worst and not deserving of even one decent press release. And then he goes on, he's kind of like, oh, woe is me. Like, I've been getting all this bad press. Your poor old buddy, Jerry Lee Lewis. Nowhere does he mention the reason that he's getting this bad press.
- [39:27]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Poor Jerry Lee can't even have one child bride. Can't even marry one cousin.
- [39:33]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah.
- [39:36]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Like everyone else can. And then it's like, well, they can't. That's part of this. Everyone can't do that. And. And you especially can't do that because everyone will know if you do that. And he also sets fire not only to piano, but a lot of this goodwill that he has sort of, you know, because this happens in 1957 when he marries her, which is like right when his career has really taken off. He, like, can't. It seems like he can't help himself but do just horrible.
- [40:03]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yet he had an opening. You know, Elvis Presley was going off to be in the military. Little Richard had this big change of heart and was going over to religion momentarily. And this was gonna be Jerry Lee Lewis moment where he was going to assume his rightful place as the king of rock and roll. And he just completely blew it up all from his own doing. And instead of taking any sort of responsibility for it, he just continued to hurt the people in his life, do lots of pills and booze and just kind of, you know, he had this resurgence later on where the country world welcomed him in. Not a good look for the country world, but yeah, he managed to kind of revive his career by doing some country music.
- [40:48]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Well, I think the country music world is also a place where very often we can say they can't help themselves from doing horrible stuff too, to be fair. It is interesting though, that that's where his redemption arc sort of. What is that, like, late 60s, early 70? He has this redemption arc that comes with the help of Nashville. Also, interestingly, I've read in like an interview where someone said that they had introduced him to Bob Dylan and said, I Think you should meet Bob Dylan. I think you guys could really do something. Bob Dylan says, yes, let's record together. Which, by the way, don't like that. I'm a big Dylan fan. Didn't like that. But he says, let's record together. And Jerry Lewis says, no, it's like, absolutely not.
- [41:30]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Masterful gambit, sir. Yeah. You have Bob Dylan offering you some record, some records on a play a platter, and you're just like, nah.
- [41:42]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. And this is also while he's like, in his redemption arc or right before this, this is a moment where he could have like, seen that and leapt on it and been like, great. This, this up, you know, up and coming kid from Minnesota is gonna. But no, he says, absolutely not. You're not cool enough for me. Where's your child bride? Bye.
- [42:02]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Get yourself a child bride before you talk to me. Kill a few rattlesnakes before you talk to me. It's. He. His ego is just. Was so big, he. He couldn't handle the idea of being second best to anybody. And he had this. Because of that, he had this. This really weird relationship with Elvis, who he viewed as, like, you know, actual competition. And at one point he got arrested because he showed up outside Elvis's house just totally wasted, waving a gun around and, you know, told Elvis to come out and, you know, waving a gun around seemed to be something that he did a fair amount of because that's how his bass player ended up getting shot in the chest, allegedly, is that Jerry Lee Lewis was just playing with a gun and it went off and shot his player in the chest. You know, whether. Whether or not there's other. Other aspects to that, we don't really know. That's. We only have his word for it.
- [43:00]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. I think it. It is interesting that there are so many moments here where it seems to be about this sort of, like, bravado and this larger than life Persona and putting on a sort of performance and styling yourself a certain way and behaving a certain way that normally for most people or for a lot of artists, that's an attempt to sort of create a Persona. Right. And like, create a. That doesn't necessarily translate always to, like, who you are as a person, what your personality is, what your behavior at home is. But this guy, it's like all the same across the board, which is kind of like, odd. I would. I think at least to a sort of outsider it is.
- [43:43]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah, he. I mean, he's an odd guy. And when you watch interviews with Jerry Lee Lewis, there is. There's like this palpable tension in the room. He's just got these beady eyes and he's just looking for some reason to tee off on the interviewer. He's just like this mean dude. And so people have to, you know, people that work in his orbit have to do all of this kind of like emotional management to make sure that he doesn't fly off the handle and, you know, punch somebody in the face or get in a fight or, you know, start beating up one of his wives. There's just. I mean, he was just this massive, massive liability. And I don't know. I don't know how people stuck around him as much as they did.
- [44:32]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah, I mean, I think there's obvious tension in the room when the guy you're talking to has a sort of reputation for shooting people in the chest.
- [44:42]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. You might choose your words carefully if you're the interviewer there and. And Jerry Lee Lewis is sitting across from you reeking of Crown Royale whiskey, and you're just like trying not to be the next bass player that gets shot in the chest.
- [44:56]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. And sort of the later, much later part of his life, even his performances start to become like, really off the rails. Not in the sense of like, off the rails, like lighting things on fire and playing with his feet, but like playing really bizarre music. Like a thing I was reading was like, he would play random Christmas songs during his performances who play for four hours non stop, like these. It just. Things get weirder and weirder as he gets older because there's not that force of personality there to like, for him to play off of anymore. And he just is like a weird, angry old man playing music that people are kind of. They're there to hear him play Great Balls of Fire and then they get this dude who's playing Jingle Bells and sweating for four hours.
- [45:48]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
So much sweat. My God.
- [45:51]
Dr. Claire Aubin
That is one thing that really stood out to me in looking at photos. He's so sweaty. And that's no problem with that. I get it. That's fine. But it is like kind of an interesting primary characteristic when you look at him.
- [46:05]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Yeah. I mean, it kind of helps you imagine what it'd be like to be around him. You know, you see these beads of sweat rolling down his face. You see his aforementioned beady black eyes and his kind of reluctant, you know, doesn't. When he smiles, it doesn't really reach his eyes. You know, there's just this kind of tension there. And. Yeah, I mean, he played whatever the Hell, he wanted to play, and the audiences just had to deal with it or else he'd start. I mean, he'd get in a physical fight with them. He did at several points. He was playing in Germany and people were like, you know, play rock and roll. And he was like, you're all a bunch of Hitler youths or whatever, and just like, went off the rails on him. Just had this. I mean, he just did whatever he wanted.
- [46:47]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Okay. Also kind of a read on all the youth of Germany, but we don't need to give him any flowers for that. I'm just kidding. I think you have made a very convincing argument for why he sucks. And I also think you actually didn't need to convince me at all, because, like, I said, every single thing I looked, I looked at before recording. This was like, oh, my God. Like, I could not. And there's so much more. This is just 50 minutes of a lifetime of insanity. Like, a lifetime of just, like, harming women. Truly. Like, from when he was, like, very young, like, harming women and being a racist and lying about stuff and claiming credit for things. And it's just like he has this lifetime of that. So, yeah, I think he sucked. I think we're there.
- [47:39]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
He certainly did suck. Yeah. Usually after I'm done talking about Jerry Lee Lewis in my classes, it's just quiet and it's like, you know, the students are like, are you okay? You really don't like this dude? Like, no, I don't.
- [47:54]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Next time, you can just point them to this episode and say, listen to.
- [47:57]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
That and you'll get it. Yes, absolutely.
- [47:59]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Well, thank you so much for coming on. It was so wonderful to have you here for sort of solidarity and hating.
- [48:08]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Absolutely.
- [48:10]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Dr. Komaneke can be found on Twitter atomanecki R, on BlueSkyomaneke, BSky Social and on TikTok obertkomanecki. Is that all of them?
- [48:22]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
I think so. Yeah. That sounds about right.
- [48:24]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Yeah. Well, we'll also link all of these things here for those of you who, like, you know, a random hidden C, a hidden I in the name. I get it. I have a lot of vowels in my.1. Wonderful.
- [48:37]
Dr. Robert Komanecki
Thanks, Claire. Thanks for having me.
- [48:40]
Dr. Claire Aubin
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of this Guy Sucked. A member of the Multitude podcast collective. This episode was Hosted by me, Dr. Claire Aubin, featuring special guest, Dr. Robert Komanecki, and produced and edited by Tom O'Moni. All of our theme music was written and produced by the amazing Marshall Dean Williams. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all episodes, including two extra episodes per month. You can subscribe@patreon.com thisguysucked See you next week.