Country Memories
Country Memories | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | ||||
Studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis | ||||
Released | 1977 | |||
Recorded | 1976−77 | |||
Venue | Nashville, Tennessee | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Label | Mercury | |||
Producer | Jerry Kennedy | |||
Jerry Lee Lewis chronology | ||||
|
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Country Memories is a studio album by the American musician Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Mercury Records in 1977.[2] It peaked at No. 21 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart.[3]
Background
By 1977, Lewis's long relationship with Mercury Records and producer Jerry Kennedy was coming to an end. He had signed with Smash, a division of Mercury, in 1963 and in 1968 began an incredible run on the country charts with 17 Top 10 hits, including four chart toppers, but by the mid-seventies his albums were beginning to sound overproduced and stale as the hits dried up. Years of constant touring, boozing, and pill popping had also caught up to Lewis, who would begin to have ongoing health problems (such as bleeding ulcers and stomach tears) for the first time in 1977. His voice had also grown noticeably hoarse. He was still very much in-demand as a performer, making guest appearances on the late-night TV show The Midnight Special and selling out shows, but he would only record one more album for Mercury, 1978's Jerry Lee Keeps Rockin'.
Recording
Lewis's last big hit on Mercury was "Middle Age Crazy", a song written by Sonny Throckmorton about a man who wants to stay young forever, a poignant theme for Lewis. In the liner notes to the 2006 retrospective A Half Century of Hits, Kennedy remembers the session coincided with one of Lewis's first hospitalizations, and that "the Killer" "was as white as a sheet. I was surprised we got anything from him." The track - which features legendary blind session man Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano, not Lewis - had been pre-recorded by Kennedy in advance, leaving Jerry Lee to overdub his vocal. "That was our last big hit," Lewis recalled to biographer Rick Bragg in 2014. "That's something Jerry Kennedy wanted to prove he could do. The voices and everything, except mine. And I brought it home and played it, and I played it, and I learned it...And I went up there to Nashville, and he set it up and everything, and I walked up to the microphone, took one take on it, and that was it." The single went to number 4 on the Billboard country chart. A second single, the Bobby Braddock ballad "Come On In", also hit the top 10.
Track listing
- "Middle Age Crazy" (Sonny Throckmorton)
- "Let's Say Goodbye Like We Said Hello (In a Friendly Kind of Way)" (Jimmie Skinner, Ernest Tubb)
- "Who's Sorry Now?" (Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Ted Snyder)
- "Jealous Heart" (Jenny Carson)
- "Georgia On My Mind" (Hoagy Carmichael, Stuart Gorrell)
- "Come on In" (Bobby Braddock)
- "As Long as We Live" (Bob McDill)
- "(You'd Think By Now) I'd Be Over You" (Jerry Foster, Bill Rice)
- "Country Memories" (Jerry Foster, Bill Rice)
- "What's So Good About Goodbye" (Bob McDill)
- "Tennessee Saturday Night" (Billy Hughes)
References
- v
- t
- e
- Jerry Lee Lewis
- Jerry Lee's Greatest!
- Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis
- The Return of Rock
- Country Songs for City Folks
- Memphis Beat
- Soul My Way
- Another Place, Another Time
- She Still Comes Around
- Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. 1
- Sings the Country Music Hall of Fame Hits, Vol. 2
- The Golden Cream of the Country
- She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye
- In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album
- There Must Be More to Love Than This
- Touching Home
- Would You Take Another Chance on Me?
- The Killer Rocks On
- Who's Gonna Play This Old Piano?
- The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists
- Sometimes a Memory Ain't Enough
- Southern Roots: Back Home to Memphis
- I-40 Country
- Boogie Woogie Country Man
- Odd Man In
- Country Class
- Country Memories
- Jerry Lee Keeps Rockin'
- Jerry Lee Lewis
- When Two Worlds Collide
- Killer Country
- My Fingers Do the Talkin'
- I Am What I Am
- Young Blood
- Last Man Standing
- Mean Old Man
- Rock & Roll Time
- Together (with Linda Gail Lewis)
- Million Dollar Quartet (with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley)
- The Survivors Live (with Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins)
- Class of '55 (with Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison)
- Live at the Star Club, Hamburg
- The Greatest Live Show on Earth
- By Request: More of the Greatest Live Show on Earth
- Live at the International, Las Vegas
- Last Man Standing Live
- Jamboree (1957)
- American Hot Wax (1978)
- Great Balls of Fire! (1989)
- Dick Tracy (1990)
- Original Golden Hits, Vol. 1
- Original Golden Hits, Vol. 2
- Rockin' Rhythm and Blues
- A Taste of Country
- Best of Jerry Lee Lewis
- All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology
- A Whole Lotta...Jerry Lee Lewis: The Definitive Retrospective
- "Another Place, Another Time"
- "Baby Baby Bye Bye"
- "Baby, Hold Me Close"
- "Break-Up"
- "Breathless"
- "Chantilly Lace"
- "Cold, Cold Heart"
- "Come as You Were"
- "Crown Victoria Custom '51"
- "Crazy Arms"
- "Don't Let Me Cross Over" (with Linda Gail Lewis)
- "Down the Line"
- "End of the Road"
- "Fools like Me"
- "Great Balls of Fire"
- "Hi-Heel Sneakers"
- "High School Confidential"
- "How's My Ex Treating You"
- "I Can't Seem to Say Goodbye"
- "I'll Make It All Up to You"
- "I'm on Fire"
- "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"
- "In the Mood"
- "Invitation to Your Party"
- "It'll Be Me"
- "Jackson" (with Linda Gail Lewis)
- "Lewis Boogie"
- "Me and Bobby McGee"
- "Meat Man"
- "Money (That's What I Want)"
- "Old Black Joe"
- "Once More with Feeling"
- "One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)"
- "One Minute Past Eternity"
- "Pen and Paper"
- "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye"
- "She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me)"
- "She Was My Baby (He Was My Friend)"
- "Sixteen Candles"
- "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
- "Seasons of My Heart"
- "Sweet Little Sixteen"
- "Teenage Letter"
- "There Must Be More to Love Than This"
- "To Make Love Sweeter for You"
- "Touching Home"
- "Turn On Your Love Light"
- "What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)"
- "What'd I Say"
- "When He Walks on You (Like You Have Walked On Me)"
- "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"
- "Who's Gonna Play This Old Piano?"
- "Wild One"
- "Would You Take Another Chance on Me"
- "You Win Again"
- Jamboree (1957)
- High School Confidential (1958)
- Be My Guest (1965)
- 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee (1969)
- American Hot Wax (1978)
- Myra Gale Brown (cousin/wife)
- Linda Gail Lewis (sister)
- Mickey Gilley (cousin)
- Carl McVoy (cousin)
- Jimmy Swaggart (double first cousin)
- Discography
- Great Balls of Fire!
- Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind
- Walk the Line
- Jerry Kennedy
- Kenny Lovelace
- Mack Vickery