Last Man Standing

My blogging has been a bit lapse recently, so it occured to me that I should use some of my newspaper music reviews to pad things out for those people who don't have access to the O.D.T. Of course, I only plan to feature reviews of albums that are any good, and this one from Jerry Lee Lewis is great.

"Infamous for bizarre behaviour, Jerry Lee Lewis’ undoubted talent has never been in question. However, the same cannot be said for his desire to perform, largely an enigma for the last 25 years. Enticed into a recording studio by lifelong fan and film hotshot Steve Bing, Lewis reportedly arrived at the first sessions in his pyjamas. What a blessing that he did, this album makes a mockery of all the other old rockers still trying to string together a tune for a buck.

Out of the legendary Sun Recording artists assembled by founder Sam Phillips, names like Elvis, Perkins, Cash and Orbison come to the fore as musicians who helped define popular music. However, it is Jerry Lee Lewis who still burns brightly as the ‘Last Man Standing’. If there was any suspicion that Last Man Standing might be a sentimental marketing ploy to rescue Lewis’ finances then the opening salvo of “Rock N Roll” blows that theory away. Spitting out “Let me get back where I come from, the gritty riffing of Jimmy Page is matched by ‘The Killer’ frenetically thumping the keyboards while squeezing every nuance out of his vocals.

The pace rarely lets up, I doubt John Fogerty has performed Travelin’ Band at the pace cooked up by Lewis. Now 70, the performance is explosive, testament to Lewis’ status as the original bad boy of rock and roll. Whatever you think of his chequered past, it’s simply impossible not to smile when Lewis sings ‘That Kind of Fool’ with Keith Richards. Lewis typically upstages his somewhat younger collaborators. The two best tracks on the album are from two of the oldest pairings, Buddy Guy and BB King, proving that age isn’t any hindrance to real talent. Last Man Standing is a great country-blues album favouring Lewis’s love of barroom honky-tonk. Bad luck, bad decisions and badass keyboard playing, Jerry Lee Lewis is a survivor with one hell of a sound".

Rating: 4.5 stars