Family, fans bid adieu to music icon Jerry Lee Lewis

FERRIDAY, Louisiana (AP):

Family, friends, and fans gathered Saturday to bid farewell to rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis at memorial services held in his north Louisiana home town.

Lewis, known for hits such as Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, died on October 28 at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis, Tennessee. He was 87.

TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, Lewis’ cousin, told the more than 100 people inside Young’s Funeral Home in Ferriday, the town where Lewis was born, that when Lewis died, he “lost the brother I never had”.

“We learned to play piano together,” Swaggart recalled. “I had to make myself realise that he was no longer here.”

Swaggart and Lewis released The Boys From Ferriday, a gospel album, earlier this year, and Swaggart said he wasn’t sure if Lewis was going to be able to get through the recording session.

“He was very weak,” Swaggart said. “I remember saying, ‘Lord, I don’t know if he can do it or not.’ But when Jerry Lee sat at that piano, you know he was limited to what he could play because of the stroke, but when the engineer said the red light is on and when he opened his mouth, he said, ‘Jesus, hold my hand, I need thee every hour. Hear my feeble plea, oh Lord, look down on me.’”

The session resulted in the album, and two of its songs played during the service: In the Garden and The Old Rugged Cross. Audience members were seen wiping tears from their eyes and singing along with Lewis as the recordings were played.

“He was one of the greatest entertainers who ever lived,” Swaggart said.

Lewis, who called himself ‘The Killer’, was the last survivor of a generation of artistes that rewrote music history, a group that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard.

Lewis’ body was at the front of the funeral home’s main parlor, inside a closed, red casket with a spray of red roses on top. Several funeral wreaths, including one in the form of a musical note, dotted the walls behind and around the casket as did photos of the singer, one of which showed him in a red suit hunched over and singing into a microphone.