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THE KILLER TRACKS HIS SOUTHERN ROOTS article by Audrey Winters
Jerry pictured with Tony Joe White, Mack Vickery and producer Huey Meaux at the Southern Roots Session at TMI Studio, Memphis on 29 September 73 - it was Jerry's birthday - he was 38! Down in Memphis, the Killer was in rare form. Yep, Jerry Lee Lewis was making a record - 18 cuts, to be precise, at TMI Studios. "It's just like a circus," said Jerry Williams, president of TMI, casting an eye over the 30-odd souls gathered in the control room. Now, this was no ordinary session - if any Jerry Lee session can be called ordinary, and that's open to doubt. The Killer was going back to his roots, and he was, taking Carl Perkins, the MG's (Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr.), Tony Joe White, Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere's Raiders), the Memphis Horns, and his own Memphis Beats along with him. The album will be called Southern Roots and that just about describes it. The Killer covered southern territory from Buddy Holly's rockabilly "Raining In My Heart" to Percy Sledge's big R&B hit, "When A Man Loves A Woman," hitting numbers like "Honey Hush," "Haunted House," "Hold On (I'm Coming)," and "Revolutionary Man" in between. In true Killer style, Jerry Lee did some clowning around, too. Forgetting the song lyrics, he'd make up his own. Picking up the telephone to answer a call late one night, he greeted the party with, "Some are home, some are here, and some are gone." Then, with that deadpan straight face of his, he turned around and said, "I swear that lady said 'Well, may I venture on.'" He ribbed producer Huey Meaux throughout the 50 hours of sessions, calling him "Papa Thibodeaux." One night he declared, "I'm going to record 'Old Shep' in rock and roll - only Old Shep is gonna die in my song. I think I'll send him up to Elvis's place and let it bite the hell out of him." The sessions were the setting for one auspicious occasion: Jerry was surprised by a birthday cake and champagne. He's now 38 - with a bullet, no doubt. Note from Kyle's Webmaster: The Trans-Maximus studio at 1711 Poplar, Memphis had been set up in 1970 by Steve Cropper and Ronnie Stoots (both former Stax musicians) in partnership with Jerry Williams (of Swampdog). A year after this session the studio was sold to Isaac Hayes who cuts some of his film music there. These days it is owned by a firm of architects but some ardent Jerry Lee fans still visit to take a picture of the place where Jerry Lee partied and partied, day after day, while cutting the record. The Mercury box set records just some of the mayhem and crazy goings on! |
