Where's Elvis these days?

Elvis always played the game – and a game it was – of being such a fine fellow; loved his Momma and loved his God, and always tried to do the right and decent thing. Of course it was all a façade. As brilliant as he was, he was also a bloated, pathetic, drug-addled luster after little girls in white panties by the end of his days. Sad, really, because there is little question he was a fine, and even revolutionary stylist who, via his own excesses, shuffled off this mortal coil much to early – or too late, in the esteem of some who recalled him from his brilliant early days at Sun Records.

Like me, for example.

Jerry Lee Lewis, on the other hand, was the real goods. He never played anybody’s game. Bad to the bone, some thought. Wild and flamboyant, Jerry Lee lived the life of a musical outlaw in all realms of his being. He should have been dead decades ago, but he still carries on carrying on, and I say good for him. Now 70, he has outlived Elvis by nearly 30 years and he never once pretended to be anything but the wild man he is.

Starting at Sun Records at the same time as Elvis with a ditty (that still works) called Crazy Arms, he almost immediately screwed up. But, he didn’t plummet into so-called infamy before he’d recorded some mighty fine rockabilly hits like Whole Lotta Shakin’, Great Balls of Fire and a few others. While Elvis caused a certain amount of consternation amongst parents with his gyrating hips. Jerry Lee, however, distressed the elders even more with his blonde locks cascading over his sweaty forehead as he pounded away at the piano. And he sealed his fate with the respectable folk with the big aforementioned screwup.

And that one was, he went and married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra. That act caused no end of consternation. Ironically, because of the mythology surrounding him – good to his Momma, etc. – nobody batted an eye a few years later when Elvis actually moved Priscilla in with him at Graceland when she was a child of 14. However, the uproar around Jerry Lee’s transgression virtually torpedoed his career for a time.

People tended to ignore the fact that Jerry Lee was only 19 when he took up with Myra, but didn’t ignore the fact this ‘cracker’ had already been married twice and wasn’t quite divorced from his second at the time. As for Myra’s age, it was quite legal for her to marry at her age at the time. Although, some thought the age of the child was a fabrication. “Hell, us good ole boys knew she was only 11,” said musical contemporary Carl Perkins. Who knows? Myra still holds to 13 having been her age.

Anyway, he came back. He trod the C&W circuit for a while, and even did some gospel (he’s mighty good at it, by the way) including carrying out music arrangements for his cousin, evangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggart. Ultimately he returned to rock, divorced Myra, married a lot more times, accidentally shot his manager and got up to all manner of disgraceful behavior. But the music always prevailed.

A few years ago Jerry Lee nearly died. He was given a 50-50 chance of survival due to a lifestyle induced perforated ulcer. He survived. He cleaned up his act, by-and-large.

Now, seven or eight marriages down the road, and a lot of grief and a lot of joy gone by, Jerry Lee is the Biblical (and this boy believes in the Bible, by the way) three-score-and-ten, and is still rocking the pants off younger dudes, and they pay homage to him for it. Whether he is still rocking the pants off younger ladies remains to be seen, but I hope he is.

And maybe we finally become anointed if we hang around long enough. This month Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis is the subject of Vanity Fair’s Proustian questionnaire, and his responses are quite sedate and well considered. How respectable is that? Good on him. He deserves the accolade, if not for the life he’s led, then for the talent he has and the talent he’s shared.