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| 1924-1970 |
Thanks, Debbie D, for asking me to sit in on Jerry Lee Lewis month. I had a blast! I'll leave you all with a bit of Star-Club madness:
In one of those cases of "clueless producers completely botching incredible Jerry Lee Lewis performances" (the 60s and 70s are full of these unfortunate occurances) - here is a completely mesmerizing version of "Jukebox" from his 1973 album The London Sessions. Near as I can tell the released version, itself one of the highlights of the 2 LP set, is an almost randomly edited version of this 8 minute drunken biographical yodeling rant, with TWO great solo breaks and enough improvised asides, hollers, and hilarious band directions to fill an entire mid 60s SMASH LP. Considering the overall sloppiness of the Session recordings in general, how this recording was deemed unfit for public exposure is beyond this Ichibaner's comprehension - this + "Headstone on My Grave" would make for one of the greatest sides of uncut Jerry Lee ever.
Stop what you're doing and give yourself eight minutes to pay attention to this one (actually 15, because you want to take it twice, killer) and if ANYONE can tell me where to acquire a hard copy of this recording in better thanYoutube fidelity, please inform me in the blog posthaste. Near as I can tell it's not on the Complete London Sessions CDs or any Bear Family Box Set. The only reference I can find to its existence might be on an Argentinian Jerry Lee fansite, but then again my researches are pretty half-assed, and my half assing is not nearly as genius as Jerry Lee's.
Think about it:
