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Christine McVie, beloved Fleetwood Mac musician and prolific lyricist, died on Wednesday (Nov. 30). She was 79 years old.
The late singer’s family shared the news via a statement posted to Facebook, which noted that she passed away at a hospital “following a short illness.”
“She was in the company of her family,” the statement continued. “We kindly ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this extremely painful time, and we would like everyone to keep Christine in their hearts and remember the life of an incredible human being, and revered musician who was loved universally.”
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Following the sad news, McVie’s bandmates shared a joint statement to the official Fleetwood Mac Twitter page. “There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie,” the message read. “She was truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure. She was the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life. We were so lucky to have a life with her.”
The statement concluded, “Individually and together, we cherished Christine deeply and are thankful for the amazing memories we have. She will be so very missed.”
McVie had an illustrious, respected career both as a soloist and as a member of Fleetwood Mac, which she joined in 1970. During her time in Fleetwood, the band had 25 Hot 100 hits, including nine top 10s and one No. 1 smash: “Dreams” in 1977.
The group also enjoyed 29 albums that charted on the Billboard 200, including seven top 10s and four No. 1s, including 1977’s Rumours, 1976’s Fleetwood Mac, 1982’s Mirage and 1997’s The Dance.
As a solo artist, McVie was known for hits such as 1984’s “Love Will Show Us How” and “Got a Hold on Me,” the latter of which peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100.
Country singer Jake Flint died on Nov. 26 just hours after getting married. According to EW, publicist Clif Doyal confirmed that the 37-year-old up-and-coming singer died in his sleep, with a cause of death not announced at press time.
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The Oklahoma native’s death was announced over the weekend by manager Brenda Cline of Route 66 Entertainment, who wrote on Facebook, “With a broken heart and in deep grief I must announce that Jake Flint has tragically passed away. I’ve tried several times today to make a post, but you can’t comment on what you can’t process. The photo below is when Jake and I excitedly signed our artist management contract. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship and partnership. Jake was even more than that to me, I loved him much like a son.”
Cline called Flint the “funniest, most hilarious, hardest working, dedicated” artist she’s ever worked with, noting that they were about to embark on some business together after his wedding to wife Brenda, which took place just hours before his passing.
“Yes-yesterday. Jake has a million friends and I’m not sure how everyone will cope with this tragic loss,” Cline wrote. “We need prayers- it’s all so surreal. Please please pray for his new wife Brenda, Jake’s precious mother, his sister and the rest of his family and friends. This is going to be incredibly difficult for so many. We love you Jake and in our hearts forever.”
New wife Brenda also mourned Flint, writing on FB, “We should be going through wedding photos but instead I have to pick out clothes to bury my husband in. People aren’t meant to feel this much pain. My heart is gone and I just really need him to come back. I can’t take much more. I need him here.”
According to “Cowtown” singer Flint’s website, he was born in 1985 and raised in Holdenville, Oklahoma and was best known for his songs Oklahoma Red Dirt-style songs “Fireline” and “Hurry Up and Wait.” Flint pursued music spurred by his late father’s wish to share something with his son. After his dad was diagnosed with ALS, he asked some friends to teach him how to play guitar, leading to the singer “float[ing] through life loving, hating, gaining, losing, experimenting, witnessing, missioning, sinning, breaking the law, paying the consequences while openly and candidly writing about it all.”
Flint’s friend and fellow musician, Mike Hosty, told The Oklahoman that the wedding took place on a remote Oklahoma homestead on Nov. 26, just hours before the singer’s death. “It was rainy, but he’d rented a 40-by-60 circus tent,” Hosty said. “They put up a bunch of carpets over the mud and then got two pieces of three-and-a-quarter-inch plywood and set it on the ground — and that was my stageJake goes, ‘Is that gonna be all right for you?’ And I go, ‘Jake, that’s perfect.’ A piece of plywood or a flatbed trailer is where I shine.”
Hosty called his late friend a “singer-songwriter, through and through, and just a big personality… a big heart, and [he’d] bend over backwards to do anything for you. When any musician asks you to play at their wedding it’s one of those most important days… and it’s always an honor.”
Flint’s most recent album was June 2021’s Live and Socially Distanced at Mercury Lounge, which included the songs “What’s Your Name,” “Drugged, Drunk and Alone/Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Hard Livin’” and “Cold in This House.” Previous studio releases included a self-titled 2020 album and 2016’s I’m Not OK.
See Cline’s tribute below.
Al Mair, Canadian Music Industry Legend & Label Founder, Dead at 82 – Billboard Skip to main content ad
Gene Cipriano, the always busy woodwind player who soloed on tenor sax for Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot and recorded with everyone from Miles Davis, Rosemary Clooney and Frank Sinatra to Glen Campbell, Paul McCartney and Olivia Newton-John, has died. He was 94.
Cipriano died Nov. 12 of natural causes at his home in Studio City, his son Paul told The Hollywood Reporter.
Perhaps the most recorded woodwind player in show business history, Cipriano played soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones, all the clarinets and flutes, the oboe and bass oboe, the piccolo and the English horn.
Affectionally known as “Cip,” the session musician performed as a member of the Academy Awards Orchestra in the neighborhood of 60 times since 1958. (At the 1977 show, he exchanged “yo’s” with Barbra Streisand, who had just arrived at the podium after having won for “Evergreen.”)
Cipriano on oboe is heard at the start of Sinatra’s melancholy “It Was a Very Good Year,” and he performed on several of Campbell’s early hits, including “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”
Like Campbell, he was an occasional member of The Wrecking Crew, the fabled set of studio musicians who recorded with the likes of The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra and Sonny & Cher.
“It was a lot of fun because a lot of times the composer would say to the rhythm section, ‘Think of something wild that would fit this particular piece of music,’” Cipriano recalled in a 2019 interview for the website Making Life Swing. “They would think of something and then they’d ad lib and tell us what to play. Sometimes we’d make up music right on the spot.”
Shortly after moving from New York to California in the 1950s, Cipriano was hired by Henry Mancini to play flute on the new NBC crime series Peter Gunn. The pair then collaborated on CBS’ Mr. Lucky and in films including The Days of Wine and Roses (1962), Hatari! (1962), Charade (1963) and The Hawaiians (1970).
Cipriano worked alongside Johnny Mandel on The Sandpiper (1965) and with Michel Legrand on The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and was heard on West Side Story (1961), Cleopatra (1963), The Americanization of Emily (1964), Point Blank (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), The French Connection (1971), Marathon Man (1976), One From the Heart (1981), The Karate Kid (1984), Up (2009) and more.
Born on July 6, 1928, in New Haven, Connecticut, Cipriano started taking clarinet lessons from his father, Fred, who played on Broadway and with the New Haven Symphony.
“He put a clarinet in my hands when I was 8 years old,” he said. “I began to listen to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”
As a junior in high school, Cipriano landed a gig with Ted Fio Rito’s orchestra, where he met trumpeter Doc Severinsen. After he finished school, he worked with Clooney and her sister Betty in The Tony Pastor Band, with pianist Mancini in The Tex Beneke Band and with singer Frances Irvin, his soon-to-be wife, in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
After he relocated to California, Mancini gave him his big break on Peter Gunn. “That got me started because it became such a hot item and then all the other leaders said, ‘Well, get me those guys who played with Henry Mancini,’” he noted in another 2019 interview.
Cipriano also performed on Elvis Presley’s NBC comeback special in 1968. Over the years, he recorded with Shorty Rogers, Harry Nilsson, Neil Diamond, Thelonious Monk, Elton John, Frank Zappa, Gerry Mulligan, Helen Reddy, Barry Manilow and Seth MacFarlane. He also played on many Emmy and Grammy telecasts.
In 2006, Cipriano recorded his own CD, First Time Out, a collection of jazz tunes.
In addition to his son Paul, survivors include his other children, Genie, Suzanne and Fred; grandchildren Grant and Alicia; great-grandchildren Natalie and Emily; and sister Marie.
His wife of 43 years, Frances, died in 1996. Four years later, Cipriano met singer Catherine “Cat” Conner, and they performed all over Los Angeles in a small band. She cared for him until his death.
This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.
Jonathan “Hovain” Hylton, who was recently honored as one of Billboard’s 2022 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players, has died.
“It is with deep regret that we message to all family, friends and colleagues that Jonathan ‘Hovain’ Hylton passed away while at his home on Friday, November 25. He was a beloved and devoted father, husband, son, brother and a proud Brooklyn representative,” read a statement posted Saturday (Nov. 26) on Hylton’s verified social media accounts.
The statement continued, “We’d like to thank all of his close friends for all of the love and support that you have shown during this difficult time. We ask that you all continue to keep his family in your prayers and respect their privacy at this time.”
A cause of death has not been disclosed.
On Friday morning, Hylton had last tweeted, “Good morning and thank GOD for another day,” a message he had been putting out into the world daily.
Hylton, a Brooklyn native who was a vp at Cinematic Music Group, was named alongside founder Jonnyshipes on this year’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list.
“I’ve always prided myself on just being a good person and a hard worker. Never was big on awards. The way I came in this game was the independent route so I always knew caring too much about the politics wasn’t going to help me. But it feels good to be honored as one of Billboard’s Power Players alongside my brother and partner @jonnyshipes,” Hylton wrote on Instagram on Nov. 17. He added, “I think the biggest lesson is this is you don’t have to be a sucka or do corny s— to be recognized. Just be a good person and do your job and God will make the rest happen on his time.”
Throughout his career Hylton helmed projects for prominent New York rappers including Cam’ron, Styles P and Lloyd Banks, and alongside Jonnyshipes at Cinematic Music Group worked with artists including T-Pain and Flipp Dinero.
Hylton was also a professor at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, where he taught “The Business of Music,” an eight-week course offering students in-depth knowledge on publishing deals, business positions needed for an artist’s success and more.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to come from where I come from and to be asked to teach at such a fine institute,” Hylton told Billboard in 2021, when the course launched. “To share my love for music with the young minds who are looking to learn [will be a great experience].”
The music community mourned the death of Hylton on Saturday.
“Maaannnn we lost my brother in drip @hovain love you brother you always showed nothing but love and positivity. My condolences to your family,” Fat Joe wrote on Instagram. “Till we meet again RIP.”
“Damn Hov… Rest Up… Appreciate your knowledge & your positive energy… May God Bless your family with peace. Love & Light from my family to yours. Long Live Hovain,’ T.I. wrote on Twitter.
“Hovain had just hit me up about doing some music with lloyd banks,” Hit-Boy tweeted. “God bless his family.”
Charles Koppelman, former music executive and Martha Stewart chairman, died on Friday (Nov. 25). He was 82. A cause of death was not given at the time.
His son, showrunner Brian Koppelman, announced the loss on his social media, saying, “I’ll write more about my dad, Charles Koppelman, when I can. But the only thing that matters is how much I loved him. And how much he taught me about every single thing that matters.”
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The Billions co-creator continued, “He lived exactly the life he wanted to live. And he spent his last days surrounded by those he loved the most. Pop, thank you.”
Koppelman began his career in entertainment as a member of musical trio The Ivy Three, which had a Top 10 hit in 1960 called “Yogi.” Shortly after, the singer and his bandmate, Don Rubin, joined Aldon Music’s songwriting staff alongside Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
From there, they went on to form Koppelman and Rubin Associates, an entertainment company that signed The Lovin’ Spoonful the same year it opened. When Commonwealth United purchased the company in 1968, the two business partners stayed on to run it, before Koppelman moved on to CBS Records where he held multiple positions. While there, Koppelman signed acts like Billy Joel, Dave Mason, Janis Ian, Journey and Phoebe Snow.
In 1975, he was ready for another change, creating The Entertainment Company with Martin Bandier and Bandier’s father-in-law, New York real estate developer Samuel LeFrak. Together, they administered and promoted song catalogs, as well as produced iconic artists like Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Diana Ross and Cher. A few years later, his son, Brian, discovered Tracy Chapman in college and introduced her to his father, who then gave her a record deal.
Koppelman, Bandier and Stephen C. Swid took things to the next level in 1986 when they formed SBK Entertainment World, Inc., and bought 250,000 songs owned by CBS for $125 million. The company eventually became one of the biggest independent music publishers, playing a major role in the careers of Michael Bolton, Robbie Robertson, New Kids on the Block, Grayson Hugh, Icehouse and more.
In 1989, Koppelman and Bandier create a partnership with EMI Music Worldwide and begin their own label, SBK Records. One year later, they landed their first platinum album with Technotronic’s Pump Up the Jam. They went on to sign talent like Jesus Jones, Wilson Phillips, Waterfront and Vanilla Ice, to name a few.
Koppelman remained in the music business for quite a few years before becoming the chairman of Steve Madden in 2000, leading the company while its founder served jail time for securities fraud. In 2005, Koppelman moved on to Marth Stewart Living Omnimedia, where he also served as chairman.
He’s survived by his son Brian, daughter Jenny Koppelman Hutt and his wife, Gerri Kyhill Koppelman.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Oscar, Golden Globe and two-time Grammy winning singer-actress Irene Cara, who starred and sang the title cut from the 1980 hit movie Fame and then belted out the era-defining hit “Flashdance … What a Feeling” from 1983′s Flashdance, has died. She was 63.
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Her publicist, Judith A. Moose, announced the news on social media, writing that a cause of death was “currently unknown.” Moose also confirmed the death to an Associated Press reporter on Saturday (Nov. 26). Cara died at her home in Florida. The exact day of her death was not disclosed.
“Irene’s family has requested privacy as they process their grief,” Moose wrote. “She was a beautifully gifted soul whose legacy will live forever through her music and films.”
This is the absolute worst part of being a publicist. I can’t believe I’ve had to write this, let alone release the news. Please share your thoughts and memories of Irene. I’ll be reading each and every one of them and know she’ll be smiling from Heaven. She adored her fans. – JM pic.twitter.com/TsC5BwZ3fh— Irene Cara (@Irene_Cara) November 26, 2022
During her career, Cara had three Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Breakdance,” “Out Here On My Own,” “Fame” and “Flashdance … What A Feeling,” which spent six weeks at No. 1. She was behind some of the most joyful, high-energy pop anthems of the early ’80s.
She first came to prominence among the young actors playing performing arts high schoolers in Alan Parker’s Fame, with co-stars Debbie Allen, Paul McCrane and Anne Mear. Cara played Coco Hernandez, a striving dancer who endures all manner of deprivations, including a creepy nude photo shoot.
“How bright our spirits go shooting out into space, depends on how much we contributed to the earthly brilliance of this world. And I mean to be a major contributor!” she says in the movie.
Cara sang on the soaring title song with the chorus — “Remember my name/I’m gonna live forever/I’m gonna learn how to fly/I feel it coming together/People will see me and cry” — which would go on to be nominated for an Academy Award for best original song. She also sang on “Out Here on My Own,” “Hot Lunch Jam” and “I Sing the Body Electric.”
Three years later, she and the songwriting team of Flashdance — music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Keith Forsey and Cara — was accepting the Oscar for best original song for “Flashdance … What a Feeling.”
The movie starred Jennifer Beals as a steel-town girl who dances in a bar at night and hopes to attend a prestigious dance conservatory. It included the hit song “Maniac,” featuring Beals’ character leaping, spinning, stomping her feet and the slow-burning theme song.
“There aren’t enough words to express my love and my gratitude,” Cara told the Oscar crowd in her thanks. “And last but not least, a very special gentlemen who I guess started it all for me many years ago. To Alan Parker, wherever you may be tonight, I thank him.”
The New York-born Cara began her career on Broadway, with small parts in short-lived shows, although a musical called The Me Nobody Knows ran over 300 performances. She toured in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar as Mary Magdalene in the mid-1990s and a tour of the musical Flashdance toured 2012-14 with her songs.
She also created the all-female band Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel and put out a double CD with the single “How Can I Make You Luv Me.” Her movie credits include Sparkle and D.C. Cab.
Geoff Wonfor, a Grammy-winning British filmmaker who directed the Beatles’ acclaimed “Anthology” documentary series and worked on the 1980s music program “The Tube” as well as several projects with Paul McCartney, has died at age 73.
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His death was confirmed Tuesday by daughter Sam Wonfor, who said he died in Newcastle, where he grew up. Additional details were not immediately available.
Released in the mid-1990s, “The Beatles Anthology” was an authorized, multimedia project that included an eight-part documentary, three double albums and a coffee table book. Wonfor spent 4 1/2 years on the film, which combined archival footage with new interviews with the then-three surviving Beatles (McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, who died in 2001). Wonfor’s challenges included weaving in commentary from John Lennon, who had been murdered in 1980.
“He was very vocal (in interviews),” Wonfor told the Los Angeles Times in 1995. “I hit on the idea of listening to his interviews that were done … getting all the pertinent questions and answers to any year we were doing (in the documentary) and then pose the exact same question to the other three Beatles, so it looked like the four of them were answering the same questions, which of course they were.”
The Anthology helped renew worldwide obsession in a band that had hardly been forgotten and brought Wonfor and co-director Bob Smeaton a Grammy in 1997 for best long form music video.
Wonfor also directed the McCartney videos “In the World Tonight” and “Young Boy” and a McCartney concert video from the Cavern Club, the Liverpool venue where the Beatles played many of their early shows. He was on hand, too, for a Beatles “reunion” from the 1990s — a video of “Real Love,” a song left unfinished by Lennon that the remaining Beatles completed and recorded.
His other credits included “Band Aid 20,” a documentary about the anniversary re-recording of the British charity song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and “Sunday for Sammy,” a tribute to the late British actor Sammy Johnson.
Wonfor had been prominent in British entertainment since the 1980s, when he directed a handful of episodes of “The Tube” and made a documentary about “Shanghai Surprise,” a feature film produced by Harrison and starring Madonna and Sean Penn. His work with Harrison would unexpectedly lead to the biggest undertaking of his career.
“I was at my dad’s and it was Paul McCartney who rang up and he says, ‘Hello there, you’re alright’? And I say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’” Wonfor explained during a 2018 appearance at the Newcastle Film Festival.
“He said, ‘I was talking to a mate of yours last night.’ I went, ‘Who the hell does he know that I know?’ He says, ‘A little guy called George Harrison.’ … And he says, ‘Anyway,’ and we talked long into the night and he says, ‘We want to do a history of the Beatles and you are that man.’”
Wilko Johnson, the longtime guitarist for British blues rockers Dr. Feelgood has died at 75. Johnson’s family confirmed the news of his passing on Wednesday morning (Nov. 23), writing, “This is the announcement we never wanted to make, & we do so with a very heavy heart: Wilko Johnson has died. He passed away at home on Monday 21st November. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy at this very sad time. RIP Wilko Johnson.”
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Johnson (born John Wilkinson) was born in 1947 and raised on Canvey Island, a bleak industrial oil town in England’s River Thames estuary and he worked as a schoolteacher before forming the long-running group with some hometown friends who’d been performing as The Pigboy Charlie Band. After changing their name — inspired by a beloved Johnny Kidd and the Pirates cover of a Piano Red blues standard — Dr. Feelgood began playing gigs in 1971, earning early praise for Johnson’s distinctive choppy, chugging fingerpicking guitar sound and singer Lee Brilleaux’s growly vocals on such favorites as “Roxette,” “Back in the Night” and covers of blues standards “Bonie Moronie” and Willie Dixon’s “You’ll Be Mine.”
Though they bristled at the term “pub rock,” the band were known for their raucous, energetic performances, best captured on their UK No. 1 live album 1976’s Stupidity. The group — whose albums were a mix of covers and blues standards along with originals largely written by Johnson during his tenure — has released more than a dozen albums to date; Johnson only appeared on their first three studio efforts (Down By the Jetty (1975), Malpractice (1975) and Sneakin’ Suspicion (1977) and Stupidity, before splitting from the group in 1977 amid reported conflicts with singer Brilleaux.
Johnson went on to form the bands the Solid Senders, as well as the Wilko Johnson Band, before briefly joining English pub punker Ian Dury’s band, the Blockheads, in 1980. He continued to perform and record with his eponymous band through the 2000s, releasing more a dozen albums and EPs, while also occasionally taking on acting roles, including a quirky slot as mute executioner Ser Ilyn Payne on four episodes of Game of Thrones. Between his signature slashing style and thousand-yard stare on stage, Johnson is credited with influencing a generation of performers in British punk and post-punk bands (Sex Pistols, Gang of Four, The Jam, The Clash) who sometimes mimicked his bug-eyed look and quirky style on stage.
After cancelling a show last minute in Nov. 2012 due to illness, Johnson shared that he was diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer in Jan. 2013, opting to skip chemotherapy after doctors told him he had less than a year to live. He released what was deemed his “final” album Going Back Home with the Who’s Roger Daltrey in March 2014 and then revealed that he had been misdiagnosed and was cancer-free later that year after undergoing a lengthy surgery to remove a massive tumor in his abdomen.
Among those paying tribute were fellow British rocker Billy Bragg, who said that Johnson was a “precursor of punk. His guitar playing was angry and angular, but his presence – twitchy, confrontational, out of control – was something we’d never beheld before in UK pop. Rotten, Strummer and Weller learned a lot from his edgy demeanour. He does it right RIP.” Blondie guitarist Chris Stein also weighed in, writing, “I frequently remind people how Dr Feelgood was an influence on the early New York and CBGBs music scene. Great guitarist and performer.”
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page also paid homage to the player whose unique style was beloved among his fellow six-stringers. “I’m sad to hear today of the passing of Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist and singer/songwriter. I saw Wilko perform at Koko in Camden in May 2013 and the atmosphere was electric. This show was originally billed as his farewell tour, but, thankfully, he continued performing and thrilling crowds until recently. I really admired him and we’ll all miss him. RIP Wilko.”
Johnson continued playing shows until just weeks before his passing and at press time no cause of death had been revealed.
Read the family’s death announcement and see some tributes to Johnson an d aclassic 1975 performance below.
This is the announcement we never wanted to make, & we do so with a very heavy heart: Wilko Johnson has died. He passed away at home on Monday 21st November. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy at this very sad time. RIP Wilko Johnson.(Image: Leif Laaksonen) pic.twitter.com/1cRqyi9b9X— Wilko Johnson (@wilkojohnson) November 23, 2022
I’m sad to hear today of the passing of Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist and singer/songwriter.I saw Wilko perform at Koko in Camden in May 2013 and the atmosphere was electric. This show was originally billed as his farewell tour pic.twitter.com/M1sQIEe4mm— Jimmy Page (@JimmyPage) November 23, 2022
Wilko Johnson was a precursor of punk. His guitar playing was angry and angular, but his presence – twitchy, confrontational, out of control – was something we’d never beheld before in UK pop. Rotten, Strummer and Weller learned a lot from his edgy demeanour. He does it right RIP pic.twitter.com/ukoJ69r41h— Billy Bragg (@billybragg) November 23, 2022
Very sad to hear Wilko Johnson has died. His unique, wired playing & stage presence thrilled & inspired many guitarists, myself included. When I interviewed him a few years ago, he was bright, thoughtful & an astonishing story teller. His presence will be felt for many more years pic.twitter.com/x6ZzQWojXp— Alex Kapranos (@alkapranos) November 23, 2022
Throwback Wednesday: For obvious sad reasons, a day early this week. Following today’s awful news of the passing of the legendary RnB guitar hero Wilko Johnson, here he is with his old friend & flatmate JJ a few years ago. Fly straight Wilko, fond adieu RIP x pic.twitter.com/bKmbxNhmuM— The Stranglers (Official) (@StranglersSite) November 23, 2022
Rest in Power Mr Wilko Johnson – you fought the good fight, and had a damn good run. when they said it was over, you came back stronger. cheers mate 🍻 pic.twitter.com/3vXuT8ixtk— anton newcombe (@antonnewcombe) November 23, 2022
Sixty-six years ago, Jerry Lee Lewis, who died Oct. 28 at the age of 87, shook America’s nerves and rattled its brains. The Dec. 22, 1956, issue of Billboard savored his debut single, “Crazy Arms,” as a “flavor-packed disk,” and the magazine went on to track the rise of “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” both of which scored on the country, R&B and pop charts all at once. And as Elvis Presley turned his attention to Hollywood and then to the U.S. Army, Lewis seemed poised to vie for The King’s throne until a British journalist learned that the girl accompanying him on his U.K. tour was his third wife — as well as his 13-year-old cousin.
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‘Balls’ Out
Lewis raised hair as well as hell. The Oct. 28, 1957, Billboard noted that his EP The Great Ball of Fire sported “a photo of the cat with the wild hair flying in the breeze” and predicted it would “sell fast.” That fire didn’t fizzle: The May 5, 1958, issue reported that “Shakin’ ” had remained a jukebox hit for months thanks to “current teeners who still flip over the music with the big beat.”
‘An Open Letter’
In May 1958, after word had spread that he had married his 13-year-old cousin, Lewis, 22, was forced to cancel his U.K. tour. In the June 9, 1958, Billboard, the singer bought a full-page ad to pioneer a pop culture tradition: the half-apology. “I confess that my life has been stormy. I confess further that since I have become a public figure, I sincerely wanted to be worthy of the decent admiration of all the people, young and old, that admired or liked what talent (if any) I have,” he wrote. “I can’t control the press or the sensationalism that these people will go to to get a scandal started to sell papers.” One big DJ backed him up. “Jerry’s a Southern boy,” Alan Freed said, “and Tennessee boys get married quite young.”
Sun Makes ‘Light’
A week later, Billboard reviewed Lewis’ New York club debut in less than glowing terms. “Showmanship is not simply a matter of banging a piano [and] stomping around stage,” griped the June 16, 1958, issue. The following edition (June 23, 1958) reported that Sun Records head Sam Phillips was servicing DJs a “cute” promotional disc, “The Return of Jerry Lee.” “It makes light of the whole British episode,” Phillips explained, “which is the way we think the whole thing should be treated anyway.”
The Killer Beats Death
Lewis found a second life in Nashville, scoring four country No. 1s between 1968 and 1972. His hard living caught up with him, however, and in 1981, he was put in intensive care and underwent stomach surgery in Memphis. Lewis pulled through and performed at the Grand Ole Opry on Dec. 3. Almost a quarter-century after Billboard panned his New York concert, the Dec. 25, 1981, issue called his return to action in Nashville “an occasion tinged with awe.” The verdict: “He’s nothing short of mesmerizing.”
Biopic Blues
A New York preview of the Dennis Quaid-starring biopic Great Balls of Fire! was followed by a midnight jam with punk purveyors John Doe and Mick Jones backing Lewis, according to the July 8, 1989, issue. Even as an elder statesman, though, Lewis stirred up trouble: In the June 24, 1989, Billboard, his own manager, Jerry Schilling, called him out for “negative and damaging” statements about Presley to another outlet.