Jerry Lee Lewis - Jerry Lee Lewis The Knox Phillips Sessions The Unreleased Recordings '2014

Tracks list

Tracklist
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01. Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
02. Ragged but Right
03. Room Full of Roses
04. Johnny B. Goode Carol
05. That Kind of Fool
06. Harbor Lights
07. Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior
08. Music! Music! Music! Canadian Sunset
09. Lovin Cajun Style
10. Beautiful Dreamer

Phillips Recording looks much as it did at its grand opening in 1960. That was
the year Sam Phillips, then president of Sun Records, closed the old studio
where he’d recorded Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King and
Howlin’ Wolf to open a new studio two blocks north. Even after Phillips
sold Sun, he kept the new studio. His sons, Knox and Jerry, swear they’ll
never relinquish it. 

Ill health has curtailed Knox’s appearances at the studio of late, but
there were years when he was there pretty much every day. When he felt those in
his presence were deserving, he would play the Jerry Lee Lewis tapes he’d
produced in the late 70s. Although no longer on Sun, Jerry Lee returned often to
Phillips Recording. He was coming off a 10-year string of country hits at a time
when progress in Nashville was gauged in slight adjustments to the formula.
Nashville records were designed neither to excite nor to offend, bringing to
mind a line from the Book of Revelations that Jerry Lee loved to paraphrase as
you must be hot or cold, for if you are lukewarm the Lord will spew you out of
His mouth. For a man conversant with popular music in all its manifestations, it
all came down to one thing: God-given talent. Jerry Lee had it. At Phillips
Recording, he once again gave some sense of all he knew and all he could do,
just as he’d done at Sun in the 50s. And the piano, always de-emphasised
at Mercury, was once again front and centre. Those who heard Knox’s tapes
implored him to release them. That time has now come. 

“Jerry Lee was always my favourite artist,” says Knox. “He can
be ornery, but he has the sweetest heart in the world. After he left Sun we got
reacquainted in the studio. His Mercury sessions only gave an inkling of what he
could do. They found great songs, but they were just country. They had
stockholders to answer to, so they wouldn’t make any giant excursions,
but Sun was always about differentness, and so am I. 

“One thing I took from my dad was that producing a record means creating a
situation where a genius can play with reckless abandon. Like Dan Penn always
says, I’ll go out on a limb, and if it breaks, that’s OK with me.
Jerry Lee hadn’t captured that reckless abandon for a long time before
this. I’d play these tapes for people I thought ought to hear them, but I
wouldn’t release them out of respect for Jerry Lee, because I
didn’t want to compete with whatever he had going on. Now the time feels
right for both of us.” 

Bless Knox Phillips for embracing all that Jerry Lee Lewis is, and for creating
the atmosphere conducive for him to express it. Sounds simple enough, except
that no one but his father did it before ... and no one has done it since. 

Get the Killer down on tape right and well make millions, growls Jerry Lee Lewis
at the beginning of The Knox Phillips Session. Jerry Lee proceeds to slide into
an exceptionally sleazy version of Jim Croces Big Bad Leroy Brown, which he
riddles with references to strippers and Watergate. He calls himself a
motherhumper, he calls Nixon a motherhumper, but he doesnt hesitate to sing
shit, he sounds about five sheets to the wind and concludes the whole shambling
thing by slurring I have struck again with a 14-million-selling underground
record. Thats a pretty good tip-off to what The Knox Phillips Sessions are.
Recorded by Knox Phillips, the son of Sun founder Sam, in either the mid- or
late 70s -- roughly around the time Killer was concluding or had concluded his
contract with Mercury -- its hard to imagine there were ever commercial
considerations for these sessions. Theyre too loose, Jerry Lee sounds too rough
(which is just a kind way of saying he often sounds drunk), he spends a fair
amount of time threatening to kick his bands ass, the repertoire draws heavily
from songs hes sung many, many times before, including songs by Chuck Berry,
Stephen Foster, hymns, and Room Full of Roses, the old George Morgan tune he
takes at a speed similar to his cousin Mickey Gilleys hit version. All of these
things doomed these recordings to stay unreleased for years but theyre also the
reason to hear The Knox Phillips Sessions now that theyve been released from the
vaults. Its hard to say that this record captures Jerry Lee Lewis at either his
purest or best -- it doesnt have the fury of either his live 60s sessions or his
Sun sessions, while the finesse of the studio Mercury sides are missed; here,
his playing is sloppy and his rhythm section has a tendency to plod -- but it is
thoroughly him in its attitude and aesthetic. He bends all these songs to suit
where hes at in the moment, the songs finding a different life according to when
he sings them, and he just happened to be soused, vulgar, and nasty at this
point in the 70s. Lewis isnt as demented on this underground record as David
Allan Coe is on his, but thats because the Killer wasnt trolling: he was just
recording songs he wanted to sing when he was half blitzed in the studio late at
night. This makes it a throwaway but one thats special: its Jerry Lee Lewis
performing for no one but himself and no matter how ragged it is, thats
something to cherish.“ (Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

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