Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story(142)

“Dyn-o-mite!” Berry said, and they danced offstage together.

John Fogerty then spoke eloquently of the never-ending cycle of rock and roll and how a riff from Buddy Holly and the Crickets’ “That’ll Be the Day” would echo in the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and later in his own music. “All of us,” Fogerty told the crowd, “are made up of the people we love and we admire. We take those reflections, and hopefully grow from those. I think that’s why we’re here, in all ten cases tonight.” Accepting for Buddy was his widow, Maria Elena, whom Buddy had loved so strongly that one night he called Jerry Lee to ask if he should marry her.

Ray Charles, whose “What I’d Say” had been a hit for Jerry Lee in the lean years, stared into the darkness of the ballroom, and heard nothing but love. Little Richard was unable to accept the award in person, because of a car accident, but he wasn’t too far gone to deliver one great “whooooooooooooooo!” via videotape. The Hall honored Robert Johnson, who shed his soul on Highway 61, the same road that took Jerry Lee to stardom, and the great stylist Jimmie Rodgers, who sang inside Elmo’s head in the prison in New Orleans. Sam Phillips, whose induction was a foregone conclusion, whose ear for talent had affected an entire society, received his due, as did the late Alan Freed, who had slumped down on that curb years ago to await word that Elmo Lewis had cut Chuck Berry’s throat. Every award, every halting induction speech, every great song the house band played seemed to be mirroring a part of Jerry Lee Lewis’s turbulent life, as if he were the frayed, tight, and trembling string that bound all this history together on a cold night in New York City. For almost every story told that night, he had seen another, better one, one they wouldn’t have wanted their wives to know.

Hank Williams Jr. waited backstage under a camel-colored Stetson. He, too, had a long, strong thread binding him to Jerry Lee. Years before, when he’d first heard Jerry Lee’s recording of his daddy’s “You Win Again,” Hank Jr. had felt his heart break, and he had called to tell him so. “You know I love my daddy,” he said, “but that’s the best I’d ever heard it done.” Now it was Hank’s boy who walked into the spotlight to speak of Jerry Lee.

“He could tear an audience apart,” he said, “I’m talkin’ tear them out of their frame and throw babies in the air when he got through. I saw this guy, I said, ‘I have got to get some piano lessons.’ I respect music and musicians for how good it is, not for the label that it has on it. Jimmie Rodgers is going in. I would imagine that Hank Williams, with his wiggling around in ‘Lovesick Blues’ in ’50 and ’51, might be in this Hall of Fame someday.” He was, the following year.

“So let’s get to the matter at hand. I’d like to bring up and induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, on all of y’all’s behalf, the Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis,” and the crowd clapped and whistled and roared as a saxophone howled “Great Balls of Fire.”

He walked out in a white tuxedo trimmed in purple, with a ruffled purple shirt. He was wasted away now, perhaps worse than ever—the flesh hung loosely on the bones in his face—but his hair was still perfect. He looked like a man who had walked through a fire and been put out just in time. He kissed Hank Jr. on the cheek. “I just don’t know what to say, except I thank God that I’m living to be here to get this award. I love you people. I need you. Couldn’t do it without you. . . . I don’t know what else to say, except may God richly bless each and every one of you. . . . Thank you very much.” And he left the stage smiling, to more wild applause.

Paul Shaffer told Rolling Stone there was no plan to have Jerry Lee and others play, though “we brought in instruments just in case.” But by midnight an all-star band was jamming onstage, led by Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry, Keith Richards, Neil Young, Ron Wood, Billy Joel, Steve Winwood, and others. The crowd roared when John Fogerty hit the first few chords of “Proud Mary,” surprising the music-savvy people in the Waldorf ballroom. He had not played the song in public since ’72. But this was a historic evening, and it deserved something special.

Fats Domino hit a lick or two on the piano for old time’s sake, but it was clearly Jerry Lee’s and Chuck’s show, even when they were playing Chuck’s music. They played “Roll Over Beethoven,” and “Johnny B. Goode” and “Little Queenie,” and Jerry Lee slowed it down for what the critics called a “delicious” version of Jimmie Rodgers’s “Blue Yodel.” But perhaps the jewel of the night was “Reelin’ and Rockin’,” as almost everybody on the crowded stage—Billy Joel almost sawed an organ in two—got to show off a little bit, none so much as Chuck and Jerry Lee, who seemed to think it was 1957 all over again. Berry, his voice not as clear and strong as it used to be, still shouted the glory of rock and roll like a man who knew.

I looked at my watch and it was quarter to four

She said she didn’t but she wanted some more



“I heard that,” shouted Jerry Lee.

Chuck pointed at Jerry Lee to take it.

And he sang:

I looked at my watch and it was three twenty-five

I said, “Come on, Chuck, are you dead or alive?”





15


THE FORK IN THE ROAD