I-40 Country
I-40 Country | ||||
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Studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis | ||||
Released | 1974 | |||
Recorded | Nashville, Tennessee | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 31:23 | |||
Label | Mercury | |||
Producer | Stan Kesler | |||
Jerry Lee Lewis chronology | ||||
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I-40 Country is the 29th album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on the Mercury label in 1974.
Recording
By 1974, Lewis's remarkable hot streak on the country charts began to cool. Although the single "He Can't Fill My Shoes" would make the Top 10, a second single, the foreboding "Tell Tale Signs," only made it to number 18, and Lewis would not see the Top 10 again until 1976. The LP peaked at number 25 on Billboard's country albums chart, whereas his previous country album, 1973's Sometimes a Memory Ain't Enough, had risen to number 6. Part of the problem may have been that Lewis was becoming increasingly bored with the sweetened sound that was by now dominating his country albums, as biographer Rick Bragg explains in Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story: "The harder he tried to find a hit, it seemed, the more complicated - and less like him - the music became. The new music had a sophisticated, almost Hollywood sound, a style called countrypolitan that had put Charlie Rich back on the charts. Hard country like Jerry Lee's style was vanishing in a wash of saccharine strings, or so it seemed...He hated to sing in a booth over one of his own prerecorded backing tracks, but it was becoming routine." Lewis was also still touring constantly and abusing his body with booze and pills, which would catch up with him as the decade wore on.
One significant track on I-40 Country is "Room Full of Roses," a song that would launch Jerry Lee's cousin Mickey Gilley to stardom. In 1974 alone, Gilley would score three number one country hits and, as Gilley's star rose while his own chart success dwindled in the seventies, "the Killer" did not mince words when it came to assessing his reverential cousin's talent compared to his own; in an interview with David Booth at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Toronto in 1976, which can be heard on the 1994 Bear Family box set The Locust Years, Lewis is asked about Gilley and, after joking that he didn't know him, said "Mickey Gilley is one of the finest gentlemen you'll ever meet, a great talent, a great man. He's worked hard all his life," but then added that when people heard a Mickey Gilley record, they thought of him. Like Lewis and their cousin Jimmy Swaggart, Gilley was a talented pianist but, as Lewis told biographer Rick Bragg, "Neither one of them could touch me."[1]
Track listing
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "He Can't Fill My Shoes" |
| 2:36 |
2. | "Tell Tale Signs" | Alex Zanetis | 2:28 |
3. | "A Picture from Life's Other Side" | Traditional; arranged by Jerry Lee Lewis | 3:42 |
4. | "I Hate Goodbyes" |
| 2:33 |
5. | "I've Forgot More About You (Than He'll Ever Know)" | Cecil A. Null | 3:06 |
6. | "Tomorrow's Taking My Baby Away" |
| 3:19 |
7. | "Cold, Cold Morning Light" |
| 3:10 |
8. | "The Alcohol of Fame" | Buzz Rabin | 2:30 |
9. | "Where Would I Be" | Ray Griff | 3:04 |
10. | "Bluer Words" |
| 2:19 |
11. | "Room Full of Roses" | Tim Spencer | 2:36 |
Total length: | 31:23 |
References
- ^ The Journal of Country Music - Volumes 13-15 - Page 28 1989 While I was there, I did two albums on Jerry Lee Lewis on Mercury [Sometimes a Memory Ain't Enough in 1973 and 1-40 Country in 1974]. And I did a few of what they call "Tex" sessions with guys that would come in with $3,000 who wanted to .
External links
- I-40 Country at Discogs (list of releases)
- v
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- 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