Jerry Lee Lewis: King of Rock'n'Roll! [ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE:

"This is Jerry Lee Lewis, the King of Rock'n'Roll!"

Tony Palmer planned, in 1976, an ambitious project: to write the book that would tell the history of popular music--and call it, 'All You Need is Love'. (John Lennon told him it would make a great title.)

The book never came to fruition, but through Lennon, Palmer, with the BBC, produced the greatest Rock documentary of the last thirty years.

'Episode 1' begins with a looming, red-faced, Jerry Lee Lewis, and revisits him amidst the gathering Fireball-showers of 'Episode 13'.

Here he has embraced his exile and finds himself combating wholesale litigation; counting sloth; traducing the rag-endings of vapoury treacle, and distorting the alcohol-illusive whim of 'Seagram encasement'.

Here is Tony Palmer on Jerry Lee Lewis:

"When I went to interview Jerry Lee Lewis in Las Vegas, he was performing, not on a stage or even on a riser, but in the entrance to the Holiday Inn. He was on one side of the room and people were checking in on the other."




'All You Need Is Love', screened in 1977, remains today a film of powerful narrative, including--rather than clips--complete performances and extensive interviews.

This trailer (AYNIL, 2008, DVD re-release), narrated by Jack Good (producer, 'Catch My Soul', Rock Musical: Lewis plays Iago in Shakespeare's Othello,1968), features live, hand-held footage of the Killer on stage, accompanied by tambourine-waving sister, Linda Gail. (Episode 13:'Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll')

Jerry Lee is still alive, and though he may be recumbent at his Nesbit ranch, under the care of his daughter, Phoebe, I like to imagine him watching this clip, dreaming of Hernando's Hide-a-Way, his dog, Nightstalker at his side, while a saliva bubble pops softly in the blue flickery darkness of the television light.

THIS IS MY FAVORITE VIDEO!

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