Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935) is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, and pianist, as well as an early pioneer of rock and roll music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of F

Jerry Lee Lewis (born September 29, 1935) is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, and pianist, as well as an early pioneer of rock and roll music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. His nickname is The Killer.

Born in Ferriday, Louisiana, Jerry Lee Lewis showed an early, natural talent for the piano. His parents were poor but took out a loan to buy a third-hand upright piano for him. Sharing piano lessons with his cousins Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Lee Swaggart, the ten-year old Lewis is said to have shown remarkable aptitude for the instrument. A visit from piano-playing older cousin Carl McVoy revealed the methods for the boogie-woogie styles he was hearing on the radio and across the tracks at Haney's Big House, which was owned by his uncle, Lee Calhoun, and catered exclusively to blacks. Lewis mixed boogie-woogie with gospel and country and developed his own style. He combined genres in the way he syncopated his rhythms on the piano: his left hand generally played boogie while his right played the high keys with flamboyant elaboration and show. By all family accounts, by the time Lewis was 14, he was "as good as he was ever going to get."