Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis
The Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis | ||||
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Studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis | ||||
Released | January 1964 | |||
Recorded | 1963 | |||
Studio | Philips Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee | |||
Genre | Rock and roll, rockabilly | |||
Label | Smash | |||
Producer | Shelby Singleton | |||
Jerry Lee Lewis chronology | ||||
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The Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis is the third studio album by musician Jerry Lee Lewis that was released on Smash Records in 1964. It was Lewis's first album with the label after leaving Sun Records.
Background
After his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin Myra and the resulting scandal that ensued when he toured Britain in May 1958, Lewis was blacklisted from radio and his singles flopped. By 1963, he had scored only one minor hit (a cover of the Ray Charles song "What'd I Say") and, frustrated by what he saw as Sam Phillips's indifference, signed with Smash. The team at Smash (a division of Mercury Records) came up "I'm On Fire," a song that they felt would be perfect for Lewis and, as Colin Escott writes in the sleeve notes to the retrospective A Half Century of Hits, "Mercury held the presses, thinking they had found Lewis’s comeback hit, and it might have happened if the Beatles hadn’t arrived in America, changing radio playlists almost overnight. Mercury didn’t really know what to do with Lewis after that." One of Smash's first decisions was to record a retread of his Sun hits, which may have been inspired by the continuing enthusiasm European audiences had shown for Lewis's brand of rock and roll.
Recording
Although competent, the remakes on The Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis could never measure up to the magic found on his early Sun sides. In his book Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found, biographer Joe Bonomo writes at length about the album's shortcomings: "The results were anemic and odd, even four decades down the line. The opening 25 seconds of 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On,' the first number tackled by Jerry Lee at the sessions, reveal the nature of the problem: so crude and essential as recorded by Jack Clement in 1957, the song is garlanded in Nashville with crispy-EQ'ed hi-hat percussion, an intrusive walking electric bass, and a syncopated rhythm guitar that feels like an annoying kid brother tagging along looking for some hijinks. The reverb applied to Jerry Lee's voice sounds contrived and artificial after Sam Phillips hands-on magic at 706 Union, and sweetened with chirpy female backing singers who were meant to complement but end up sounding as if they'd wandered into the wrong party." In an 2019 interview with Randy Fox of Vintage Rock, producer Jerry Kennedy lamented, "Jerry Lee was great in the studio, but to be honest, I felt we were desecrating something sacred. I've always been a fan of the original Sun recordings, and I've never felt remakes can match the magic of the originals."
Reception
The Golden Hits of Jerry Lee Lewis was released on January 1, 1964, making the charts briefly before vanishing (it peaked at number 40). Matt Fink of AllMusic argues that "Great Balls of Fire," "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On," "Breathless" and "High School Confidential" are given an "overall bigger, booming sound with backup vocalists and a brass section, but most would probably still give the originals pre-eminence."
Track listing
Side A
- "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On" (Dave "Curlie" Williams, Sunny David)
- "Fools like Me" (Jack Clement, Murphy Maddox)
- "Great Balls of Fire" (Otis Blackwell, Jack Hammer)
- "I'll Make It All Up to You" (Charlie Rich)
- "Down the Line" (Roy Orbison)
- "End of the Road" (Jerry Lee Lewis)
Side B
- "Breathless" (Otis Blackwell)
- "Crazy Arms" (Ralph Mooney, Chuck Seals) - 2:41
- "You Win Again" (Hank Williams)
- "High School Confidential" (Ron Hargrave, Jerry Lee Lewis) - 2:27
- "Break-Up" (Charlie Rich)
- "Your Cheatin' Heart" (Hank Williams)
Personnel
- Technical
- Billy Sherrill - recording engineer
- John Hester, Ray Butts - assistant engineer
- 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