Artist’s songs such as Great Balls of Fire helped install rock’n’roll as the dominant American pop music of the 1950s
Jerry Lee Lewis, the rock’n’roll pioneer who became one of the most infamous figures in popular music, has died aged 87, his publicist has said.
Lewis’s energetic performances on songs including Great Balls of Fire helped install rock’n’roll as the dominant American pop music of the 1950s. He was born in Louisiana in 1935, the son of a poor farming family who mortgaged their home to buy Lewis his first piano. While learning the instrument and studying at an evangelical school, he was kicked out for performing a boogie-woogie version of My God is Real that was deemed irreverent.
