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Tag: Johnny Cash

  • Bluesky Is Clearly Not a Johnny Cash Fan

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    Bluesky recently suspended the account of author and liberal influencer Sarah Kendzior, leading to confusion on the left-leaning social media platform about what she did. According to Bluesky, Kendzior was suspended for, “expressing a desire to shoot the author of an article,” a pretty shocking allegation. Until you learn the context, sparking its own debate about where platforms should draw the line when it comes to moderation.

    “The post, made 11/10, stated: ‘I want to shoot the author of this article just to watch him die,’” a spokesperson for Bluesky explained to Gizmodo in an email Wednesday morning.

    “The account owner was immediately notified of the reason for the content takedown and engaged back and forth with our moderation team. Our community guidelines prohibit content that threatens or wishes harm to others,” the spokesperson continued.

    Bluesky’s safety team also shared a similar statement online Wednesday, not long after Gizmodo received its statement via email. But Kendzior, who’s based in St. Louis and has written political books like The View From Flyover Country (2018) and Hiding in Plain Sight (2020), told Gizmodo there’s more to the story.

    “I posted that line as a quote tweet above a terrible article about Johnny Cash,” Kendzior said. “My post references the famous lyric from his song Folsom Prison Blues: ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.’”

    Kendzior was quote-posting a reference to the Wall Street Journal’s article from Oct. 9 about Johnny Cash, which was widely mocked for being out of touch. Titled, “It’s Finally Time to Give Johnny Cash His Due,” social media users poked fun at the idea that Cash, one of the most well-respected musical artists of the 20th century, had not received proper recognition.

    Kendzior pointed out that Bluesky made no mention of the Johnny Cash lyrics: “Notably, they did not send you a screenshot of my full quote-tweet, but only that one line, isolated from the Johnny Cash context.” The author says that when she received an email about the suspension, she wasn’t sure if she was dealing with “an actual employee or some sort of prank. But my entire account is gone, so it is real.”

    Kendzior told Gizmodo that she thinks her post was actually sent around Oct. 9, over a month ago, but can’t check the exact date because her posts on Bluesky have been deleted. Bluesky initially told Gizmodo the tweet was sent Nov. 10, but later issued a correction in a post that Kendzior’s post was actually sent Oct. 10.

    Kendzior, who regularly writes about politics at Substack, doesn’t believe that the Johnny Cash lyric was the real reason for her suspension on Monday, but didn’t elaborate on what she believed the actual reason might be.

    “The reason I do not think my suspension is about a reference to a Johnny Cash lyric—beyond the obvious fact that getting suspended for defending the honor of Johnny Cash is ridiculous, and beyond the fact that the post is over a month old and caused no outcry—is because they could have removed that one post instead of deleting my entire account,” Kendzior said.

    “I disagree strongly that my post deserves removal. But deleting an entire account is a tremendous violation of my free speech and does harm to everyone who cites or engages with my work and who now deal with dead links,” she continued.

    Bluesky users seemed divided on whether the post from Kendzior warranted a suspension, with many users pointing out that it didn’t seem fair, given the fact that she was responding to an article about Johnny Cash. But others thought it was a reasonable decision under the theory that a death threat is a death threat and moderators shouldn’t have to decide who is joking and who isn’t.

    Paul Frazee, a software engineer at Bluesky, posted about the idea that people could abuse a system where moderators are forced to determine what’s an actual threat versus a joke.

    “The company has a pretty no-nonsense policy about death threats, and it really doesn’t take jokes or references as sufficient padding to excuse them,” Frazee wrote on Bluesky Wednesday. “It’s one of those things that just comes from this being a big public space. Everybody will claim they’re ‘just kidding.’”

    This isn’t the first time that Bluesky has gotten heat for its moderation decisions. The platform has received criticism for being too heavy-handed in banning Palestinians on the platform who are trying to fundraise or simply increase awareness of their plight as Israel’s war on Gaza has driven them to desperate measures.

    There was also outcry recently when a user named Link was permanently suspended after posting images of Charlie Kirk that were interpreted as a threat of violence. Link, who says he does nonprofit work in Washington D.C., told Gizmodo he’s confused about the suspension and said one of two reasons Bluesky gave included a factual error. Link’s suspension appears to be permanent, whereas Kendzior’s may last just three days.

    Gizmodo reached out to Bluesky about Link’s case, but didn’t get an explanation by press time. We did at least get an acknowledgement of our emails. That hasn’t always been the case, and perhaps suggests Bluesky is pivoting away from its old communications strategy, where emails were often met with silence.

    Aaron Rodericks, the head of Trust and Safety at Bluesky, suggested it was indeed a conscious change in strategy, writing Wednesday: “Here’s a shift towards being more transparent,” while quoting a post about why Kendzior was suspended.

    Again, that post didn’t include the context that Kendzior was making a reference to a classic Johnny Cash song. But there might be a switch in the broader strategy for Bluesky as it navigates the growing pains of a larger userbase. Bluesky currently has over 40 million users, up from 30 million in January. And while social media moderation is notoriously difficult, and often nuanced, nobody is happy unless the rules and the enforcement of those rules are clear.

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    Matt Novak

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  • Debbii Dawson Doesn’t Want To End Up Like Emily Dickinson

    Debbii Dawson Doesn’t Want To End Up Like Emily Dickinson

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    For her second EP, Debbie Dawson set herself a just about impossible task: figure out how to be human. Yet, the result, How To Be Human, doesn’t purport to have all the answers. Instead, it offers scenes and sentiments of a person simply trying to live in the world — torn between the comfort of solitude and the call of the unpredictable outside world.

    One of her major inspirations for the album is Emily Dickinson, she tells me. After grappling with her own reclusive tendencies, Dawson dug into Dickinson’s life and work. In the end, she has resolved not to end up like Dickinson. So she leaned away from her desire to isolate and into her need to create. And we, the audience. are so lucky to reap the benefits.

    How To Be Human follows her 2023 debut EP, Learning, a folk-tinged proclamation of her utterly unique singer-songwriter voice. The songs convey the stumbling first-steps of establishing one’s own personhood, filled with musings that are raw and never pedantic. Although the title was exploratory the songs hold clear truths about lessons learned. Dawson’s wisdom is inherited from legendary country songwriters like Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline while her ear for melody was honed by hymns and sharpened by classical music. The result is 70s-inspired folk-pop with songs fit for a cinescape. They’re songs of yearning, but also songs for dancing around your bedroom just to remind you that you’re alive.

    Her eclectic influences get even more surprising as she tells me about her writing process — sometimes humming over dishes, sometimes inspired by art she’s consuming. Yes, the Dickinson, but also movies like
    Shrek. You’ve heard of a wall of sound? Dawson combines her unique musical background, diverse influences, and personal identities to create a tapestry of sound that cocoons its listener and welcomes them into her world.

    How To Be Human doesn’t feel like a departure from Learning but a continuation, filled with the frenetic energy of someone who’s been still too long and is yearning for a life beyond their bubble. It’s the pressure, the build-up of energy before the release — which I hope we’ll get to experience in Dawson’s next project.

    It’s thanks to this new energy, which manifests in disco-tinged production and anthemic synths, that we see a different side of Dawson as a vocalist, producer, and artist. The lyrics retain their tight intimacy but this nascent sound rattles alongside Dawson’s vibrato in satisfying chord progressions and soaring melodies.

    Debbii DawsonRCA

    When Dawson speaks, her answers come like her lyrics: concise and precise, but not at the expense of vulnerability. She reflects on themes like solitude, belonging, and multiplicity in her life and her music with specificity
    and universality. She doesn’t fall into cliches — she’s currently listening to Chinese classical music in her spare time, so nothing about her is run-of-the-mill — while also speaking to themes of connection and relatability.

    Her groundedness is part of what makes her compelling as an artist, despite her success. She signed to RCA Records in April, joined Orville Peck on part of his Stampede North American Tour, and is slated for festival dates and a slot supporting Suki Waterhouse in September.

    Dawson let us in to talk about her EPs, her recent collaboration with Orville Peck, and what’s coming next.

    POPDUST: First of all, congrats on the new EP. How are you feeling about it being out in the world?

    Debbii Dawson: I’m relieved to have it off my hands. I started some of them, like, a year ago, some of them at the same time as the last EP was being written. It was just about deciding what stories I wanted to tell when. And the sound, too.

    POPDUST: The sound really shifts from the first EP to this one. Learning was more folk-inspired, but How To Be Human sounds like ABBA meets Kasey Musgraves. Can you talk through the choices that you were making on both and why you gravitated to this new sound?

    Debbii Dawson: When I was trying to find my sound when I first started doing music, I thought I had to pick one lane so as not to confuse people. A lot of that was me actually trying to come to terms with my own identity. And until I did that, the sound didn’t come. So I had to be comfortable being a person in multiple worlds — being a first generation American, being a person of color, growing up in a white town. I had a lot of things to deal with internally. Once I accepted that, the sound came and I realized I didn’t have to pick parts of myself. I could do more than one thing at a time and people would be fine with it.

    POPDUST: How did those different parts of your identity impact you as a musician?

    Debbii Dawson: Being South Asian, I had a different cultural upbringing and realities than my peers, so my version of what it means to be an American looks different from someone else. Even with other South Asians, it varies so much between us. Musically, I also had so many influences. I grew up with old country music like Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline because that’s the western music my parents, who are immigrants, had access to. And then I grew up listening to a lot of hymns and classical music. And I think you can hear all of those present in the stuff I make. And, of course, older songs like ABBA and later, QUEEN, and really amazing musicians really resonated with me.

    POPDUST: When did you start picking out the music that you were listening to, and what were you gravitating to?

    Debbii Dawson: I had more of a religious upbringing, so I wasn’t exposed to music a lot of other kids my age were. So I started listening to music for myself probably in middle school. I listened to Coldplay for the first time, and John Lennon, and a lot of Muse. And because I loved classical music too, it was really cool how these people could take from their influences, like blues influences — and I know Coldplay had a lot of influence from hymns as well — and see them make something palatable for people.

    POPDUST: In the first EP, it feels like you’re on the outside looking in, but then the second EP is trying to bring in everyone else on the inside. What themes do you gravitate to when you write?

    Debbii Dawson: These EPs were really inspired by my own story and by Emily Dickinson, actually. She’s an American poet, who was a recluse and wrote all these amazing pieces of poetry and wasn’t published until after she died. I also have very reclusive tendencies. There was a period of time in my life where I kind of just retreated from the world and was kind of over it, and didn’t leave home for a while — and this is all pre-pandemic. Around this time I started writing as well and reading Emily Dickinson’s poems, and thinking about her life. I was like, I don’t know if I want to end up the way she did. So I decided I could change the ending if I wanted to, so her story really inspired me. So yeah, the last two EPs are written from the perspective of a recluse, and, like you mentioned, from the outside looking in, and also from the inside looking out, and maybe reasons that led that person to that place, and reasons for leaving and trying to change their situation.

    POPDUST: What drew you to songwriting?

    Debbii Dawson: I wrote poetry when I was a child. I didn’t start writing songs seriously until maybe eight years ago. I’m not the most expressive person, so it was a way for me to process thoughts and feelings privately. Then it just turned into this thing and I’ve been working on it since. It can be really scary. Songwriting is really therapeutic, but when it’s done publicly, it’s a little invasive. So it’s kind of scary. For me personally, it’s something I feel like I have to do. I have to get it off my chest. Like I said, I’m not the most expressive person, and so this is the only way I know how to do it. It’s really helpful, getting messages from people who listen to my music saying how much it impacts them, too. knowing I can write some words down and have an impact on someone is really, really special.

    POPDUST: I’m sure your songwriting has changed in the past eight years, but do you think that it’s changed in the past few years between the two EPs?

    Debbii Dawson: How To Be Human was done over a period of about a year, so it was a longer amount of time. I think “Solitude” and “Eulogy for Nobody” were written the same day. I wrote “Eulogy for Nobody” — super depressing song — on my floor in my room, and brought that into a session I had a couple of days later. I didn’t know if I wanted to work on that one or “Solitude,” which I had the riff for. And people I was with were like, Let’s do both.

    And this one, I produced. I did production on a song last time, but it’s just a guitar. But this one, I did a little bit more intense production, so it was fun to kind of dive into that. And I started “Solitude” last year, but up until a couple days before I turned it in, I was tweaking and adding arrangements at the very last minute. So it was a very fluid process. My collaborators are great, open minded people, creative people like super fun to work with.

    POPDUST: How have the people you’ve collaborated with and worked with stretched you or challenged your own instincts?

    Debbii Dawson: They’re so good at what they do. I love that they make me feel comfortable to create, which is super important in the creative process. I think I can be a perfectionist and they help me realize things don’t need to be perfect. There’s a good perfectionism and bad perfectionism. And they’re helping me with that. And then it’s always really refreshing to hear other perspectives and other angles on how people approach things.

    During the first EP, I was also more timid in rooms. I would go into the studio and maybe there’s a couple of other people in there too, and I was more shy. It takes me a minute to warm up to strangers, and so I’m still working on it, but I’m more comfortable being vocal about what I want to say, how I want to say it, if I don’t like something. Having more confidence this time around, made all the difference.

    POPDUST: You collaborated with Orville Peck for his album Stampede. How does collaboration impact sound when you’re blending your sound and your style with someone else’s?

    Debbii Dawson: With Orville, we wrote the song together. Before going into the studio to write with him, I was thinking about what through lines we had. He’s this amazing, fabulous cowboy. And I love the older country songs I mentioned, so those old country duets seemed like such a great connection. Finding the connectors between both of us, I think, allows two different people to still authentically be themselves, without one having to change the other. And I got to do a little tour with him which was so great. His fans are so welcoming and warm.

    Listen to “Back At Your Door” by Orville Peck and Debbii Dawson here:

    POPDUST: Connecting to people and connecting to fans is so special. How do you keep that alive on stage?

    Debbii Dawson: It’s a different connection. I was super shy. I didn’t know if I could perform live. I wanted to throw up thinking about it, but I remember doing my first show last year and realizing that I really loved it, and it was different when people are connecting with the music. It’s not about me standing and having people look at me — it’s about what I’m bringing to them. It’s like, here look at this thing. So it’s been nice to connect with people in that way. It’s not me and listeners connecting, but me, the listeners, and the music. So it’s less scary.

    POPDUST: So you’ve built this community. Was there any sort of trepidation about releasing this new EP with a new sound, about how people would receive it?

    Debbii Dawson: Yeah, that’s always there. I want people to like my music but you never know. But I also make music because I get uncomfortable if I don’t do it. So there’s always a hope that as long as it’s true to who I am — and if anyone else makes music, if it’s true to who you are — it’ll be easier to accept if it’s new.

    POPDUST: What goes into putting together each EP and deciding on the direction it goes?

    Debbii Dawson: I try to be cohesive. I can be a little chaotic and scattered, so I try my best to find the through line of things. I’m also a really big gut feeling person, so I try to lean into that as well. I really value the wisdom of my peers and my team. So I’ll pick people’s brains and then sit by myself for a while and chew on it. But sometimes it’s so random. Like “Happy World” was actually super inspired by Shrek.

    POPDUST: No way. The “Holding Out for a Hero” in Shrek 2?

    Debbii Dawson: No, it was when Shrek and Donkey enter Duloc and those puppets are singing the “Welcome to Duloc” song. I wanted to write a song that felt like that. Like it’s this perfect place, but something’s not quite right here. So you never know where it’s coming from.

    POPDUST: Do you have any favorite songs of all the music you’ve worked on?

    Debbii Dawson: I love “Happy World.” That was so fun to make. “Downer” was also really fun to make. I remember we all couldn’t stop smiling when we were recording that in the studio. “Solitude,” too is just a super fun song. Yeah, so many favorite children.

    POPDUST: It’s a good sign, when it’s impossible to pick. What do you hope people take from this EP — and from your music in general?

    Debbii Dawson: I hope that when people listen to my music, they know that they’re not alone and what they’re feeling or experiencing — or if they were people like me who grew up in a marginalized community — that they feel like they have somewhere to belong. And I hope that it stretches them creatively, and they know that anything is possible.That there’s no limits to what they want to create and how they want to do it.

    POPDUST: You said you’re writing. What’s coming next? What can we expect down the line?

    Debbii Dawson: I like to keep people on their toes. I think you can expect, without saying too much, more color. Yeah, more color.

    Listen to How To Be Human here:

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    LKC

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  • The 10 most iconic country-western songs

    The 10 most iconic country-western songs

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    Do y’all hear somethin’? The twang of guitars, the smooth sound of a fiddle, the rip-roarin’ “YEEHAW!” that issues from a massive crowd of music fans — it could only be one thing…

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    Lauren Cusimano

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  • WATCH: 5 Tracks That Inspired mehro

    WATCH: 5 Tracks That Inspired mehro

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    Interview and Photos by Jordan Edwards

    With his raw, vivid lyrics and moody aesthetics, mehro has become one of the most popular young singer-songwriters.

    Musically, he’s a throwback to artists from the 1960s and ’70s. It’s an era that mehro deeply admires, and it shows. From melodic rhythm guitar reminiscent of Nick Drake, to the intimacy of James Taylor and the darkness of Leonard Cohen, mehro often looks to the past for inspiration.

    On Oct. 13, the Southern California native released “Dopamine.” With cozy production and vocals that feel immediate, it’s one of his best singles. It follows the album Dark Corners and Alchemy, which arrived in March.

    We met up with mehro in Los Angeles to talk about songwriting and production. We also filmed an episode of 5 Tracks that Inspired Me, which you can watch below.

    I love your new song “Dopamine.” Is it about a real situation?
    Yes, it’s inspired by a plethora of experiences from my life.

    The production on this is beautiful. It’s brighter than some of your previous work. The layers build throughout the song. What was it like to put that track together?
    It was effortless. The way the song was written, the way it was recorded, and the way it was produced–it was almost as if it was being gifted to me.

    Is it part of a bigger project?
    Yes.

    Does living in LA influence your songwriting?
    Yes. The environment of every artist affects every artist – from our conscious mind to our deeply embedded subconscious.

    When you write and record a song, how much do you think about creating an atmosphere for the listener?
    I let the production come to each individual song. Sometimes it comes in a big inspired wave all at once. Sometimes the ideas reveal themselves step-by-step, and sometimes I have no ideas for the production whatsoever, and I leave it all to my producer, Tim James.

    Do you remember the first song you wrote? How does it stand up today?
    Yes it was called “problems.” I was 13 years old, and I still remember the lyric and melody, so that means something.

    You do a lot of interesting things with your acoustic guitar. You don’t just stick to simple chords. What guitarists do you admire?
    I admire so many: John Frusciante, Jimi Hendrix, Django Reinhardt, Rosetta Tharpe, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell. That’s just to name a few.

    Are you constantly writing, or do you sometimes step away from it?
    I’m always prepared to write because inspiration can strike at any moment. but I’m not constantly writing.

    What have you been listening to lately?
    I’ve been listening to Lil Yachty’s newest album. I’ve been listening to Jungle, Aurora, The Kinks, Tame Impala, SZA. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

    5 Tracks That Inspired mehro

    For more from mehro, follow him on Instagram and TikTok.

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    Staff

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  • Today in History: December 4, the “Million Dollar Quartet”

    Today in History: December 4, the “Million Dollar Quartet”

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    Today in History

    Today is Sunday, Dec. 4, the 338th day of 2022. There are 27 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlights in History:

    On Dec. 4, 1956, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins gathered for the first and only time for a jam session at Sun Records in Memphis.

    On this date:

    In 1783, Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.

    In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson left Washington on a trip to France to attend the Versailles (vehr-SY’) Peace Conference.

    In 1942, during World War II, U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time with a raid on Naples. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the dismantling of the Works Progress Administration, which had been created to provide jobs during the Depression.

    In 1965, the United States launched Gemini 7 with Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Cmdr. James A. Lovell aboard on a two-week mission. (While Gemini 7 was in orbit, its sister ship, Gemini 6A, was launched on Dec. 15 on a one-day mission; the two spacecraft were able to rendezvous within a foot of each other.)

    In 1978, San Francisco got its first female mayor as City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein (FYN’-styn) was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone (mahs-KOH’-nee).

    In 1980, the bodies of four American churchwomen slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five Salvadoran national guardsmen were later convicted of murdering nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel, and lay worker Jean Donovan.)

    In 1986, both houses of Congress moved to establish special committees to conduct their own investigations of the Iran-Contra affair.

    In 1992, President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.

    In 1995, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission that brought American soldiers into the middle of the Bosnian conflict.

    In 2000, in a pair of legal setbacks for Al Gore, a Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.

    In 2016, a North Carolina man armed with a rifle fired several shots inside Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C., pizzeria, as he attempted to investigate an online conspiracy theory that prominent Democrats were harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant; no one was hurt, and the man surrendered to police. (He was later sentenced to four years in prison.)

    In 2018, long lines of people wound through the Capitol Rotunda to view the casket of former President George H.W. Bush; former Sen. Bob Dole steadied himself out of his wheelchair to salute his old friend and one-time rival.

    Ten years ago: Two Australian radio disc jockeys impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles made a prank call to a London hospital and succeeded in getting a nurse to tell them the condition of the Duchess of Cambridge, who was being treated for acute morning sickness; another nurse who had put the call through would be found dead three days later in an apparent suicide.

    Five years ago: Declaring that “public lands will once again be for public use,” President Donald Trump scaled back two sprawling national monuments in Utah; it was the first time in a half century that a president had undone that type of land protection. The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries. Trump formally endorsed Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama Senate race, looking past sexual misconduct allegations against the GOP candidate.

    One year ago: James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of a Michigan teen charged with killing four students at a high school earlier in the week, were arrested in a Detroit commercial building where police said they’d been hiding; a judge later imposed a combined $1 million bond for the couple, who pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the shooting rampage. CNN fired anchor Chris Cuomo less than a week after new information emerged about how he assisted his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as the politician faced sexual harassment allegations earlier in the year. Country musician Stonewall Jackson, who sang on the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years and had No. 1 hits with “Waterloo” and others, died after a long battle with vascular dementia; he was 89.

    Today’s Birthdays: Game show host Wink Martindale is 89. Pop singer Freddy Cannon is 86. Actor-producer Max Baer Jr. is 85. Actor Gemma Jones is 80. Rock musician Bob Mosley (Moby Grape) is 80. Singer-musician Chris Hillman is 78. Musician Terry Woods (The Pogues) is 75. Rock singer Southside Johnny Lyon is 74. Actor Jeff Bridges is 73. Rock musician Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd; the Rossington Collins Band) is 71. Actor Patricia Wettig is 71. Actor Tony Todd is 68. Jazz singer Cassandra Wilson is 67. Country musician Brian Prout (Diamond Rio) is 67. Rock musician Bob Griffin (formerly with The BoDeans) is 63. Rock singer Vinnie Dombroski (Sponge) is 60. Actor Marisa Tomei is 58. Actor Chelsea Noble is 58. Actor-comedian Fred Armisen is 56. Rapper Jay-Z is 53. Actor Kevin Sussman is 52. Actor-model Tyra Banks is 49. Country singer Lila McCann is 41. Actor Lindsay Felton is 38. Actor Orlando Brown is 35. MLB pitcher Joe Musgrove is 30. Actor Scarlett Estevez (TV: “Lucifer”) is 15.

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  • Family, fans bid adieu to music icon Jerry Lee Lewis

    Family, fans bid adieu to music icon Jerry Lee Lewis

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    FERRIDAY, La. — Family, friends and fans will gather Saturday to bid farewell to rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis at memorial services held in his north Louisiana home town.

    Lewis, known for hits such as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” died Oct. 28 at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis, Tennessee. He was 87.

    Saturday’s funeral service is set for 11 a.m. at Young’s Funeral Home in Ferriday, the town where he was born, family members said. A private burial will follow. At 1 p.m., a celebration of life is planned at the Arcade Theater, also in Ferriday.

    Lewis, who called himself “The Killer,” was the last survivor of a generation of artists that rewrote music history, a group that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

    After his personal life blew up in the late 1950s following news of his marriage to his cousin, 13-year-old — possibly even 12-year-old — Myra Gale Brown, while still married to his previous wife, the piano player and rock rebel was blacklisted from radio and his earnings dropped to virtually nothing. Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness.

    In the 1960s, Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer and the music industry eventually forgave him. He had a run of top 10 country hits from 1967 to 1970, including “She Still Comes Around” and “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me).”

    Lewis was the cousin of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley. Swaggart and Lewis released “The Boys From Ferriday,” a gospel album, earlier this year. Swaggart will officiate at his funeral service.

    In 1986, along with Elvis, Berry and others, he was in the inaugural class of inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and joined the Country Hall of Fame this year. His life and music was reintroduced to younger fans in the 1989 biopic “Great Balls of Fire,” starring Dennis Quaid, and Ethan Coen’s 2022 documentary “Trouble in Mind.”

    A 2010 Broadway music, “Million Dollar Quartet,” was inspired by a recording session that featured Lewis, Elvis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.

    Lewis won a Grammy in 1987 as part of an interview album that was cited for best spoken word recording, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005.

    The following year, “Whole Lotta Shakin’” was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, whose board praised the “propulsive boogie piano that was perfectly complemented by the drive of J.M. Van Eaton’s energetic drumming. The listeners to the recording, like Lewis himself, had a hard time remaining seated during the performance.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

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  • Jerry Lee Lewis, outrageous rock ‘n’ roll star, dies at 87

    Jerry Lee Lewis, outrageous rock ‘n’ roll star, dies at 87

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    Jerry Lee Lewis, the untamable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy and ego collided on such definitive records as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, died Friday morning at 87.

    The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis, Tennessee, representative Zach Farnum said in a release. The news came two days after the publication of an erroneous TMZ report of his death, later retracted.

    Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre’s attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself “The Killer.”

    Tender ballads were best left to the old folks. Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his leering tenor and demanding asides, violent tempos and brash glissandi, cocky sneer and crazy blond hair. He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.

    “There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis.

    But in his private life, he raged in ways that might have ended his career today — and nearly did back then.

    For a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was canceled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.

    “I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”

    Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness. Two of his many marriages ended in his wife’s early death. Brown herself divorced him in the early 1970s and would later allege physical and mental cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.

    “If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.

    Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry eventually forgave him, long after he stopped having hits. He won three Grammys, and recorded with some of the industry’s greatest stars. In 2006, Lewis came out with “Last Man Standing,” featuring Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album “Mean Old Man.”

    In “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll,” first published in 1975, he recalled how he convinced disc jockeys to give him a second chance.

    “This time I said, ‘Look, man, let’s get together and draw a line on this stuff — a peace treaty you know,’” he explained. Lewis would still play the old hits on stage, but on the radio he would sing country.

    Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)”, the roving eye confessions of “She Still Comes Around” and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, “Live at the Star Club, Hamburg,” is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.

    A 1973 performance proved more troublesome: Lewis sang for the Grand Ole Opry and broke two longstanding rules — no swearing and no non-country songs.

    “I am a rock and rollin’, country-and-western, rhythm and blues-singin’ motherf—–,” he told the audience.

    Lewis married seven times, and was rarely far from trouble or death. His fourth wife, Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, drowned in a swimming pool in 1982 while suing for divorce. His fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, 23 years his junior, died of an apparent drug overdose in 1983. Within a year, Lewis had married Kerrie McCarver, then 21. She filed for divorce in 1986, accusing him of physical abuse and infidelity. He countersued, but both petitions eventually were dropped. They finally divorced in 2005 after several years of separation. The couple had one child, Jerry Lee III.

    Another son by a previous marriage, Steve Allen Lewis, 3, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a traffic accident at 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori Leigh, and is survived by his wife Judith.

    His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 to his longtime residence near Nesbit, Mississippi — complete with a piano-shaped swimming pool — he set up a 900 phone number fans could call for a recorded message at $2.75 a minute.

    The son of one-time bootlegger Elmo Lewis and the cousin of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley, Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana (Swaggart and Lewis released “The Boys From Ferriday,” a gospel album, earlier this year). As a boy, he first learned to play guitar, but found the instrument too confining and longed for an instrument that only the rich people in his town could afford — a piano. His life changed when his father pulled up in his truck one day and presented him a dark-wood, upright piano.

    “My eyes almost fell out of my head,” Lewis recalled in “Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story,” written by Rick Bragg and published in 2014.

    He took to the piano immediately, and began sneaking off to Black juke joints and absorbing everything from gospel to boogie-woogie. Conflicted early on between secular and sacred music, he quit school at 16, with plans of becoming a piano-playing preacher. Lewis briefly attended Southwestern Assemblies of God University in Waxahachie, Texas, a fundamentalist Bible college, but was expelled, reportedly, for playing the “wrong” kind of music.

    “Great Balls of Fire,” a sexualized take on Biblical imagery that Lewis initially refused to record, and “Whole Lotta Shakin’” were his most enduring songs and performance pieces. Lewis had only a handful of other pop hits, including “High School Confidential” and “Breathless,” but they were enough to ensure his place as a rock ‘n’ roll architect.

    “No group, be it (the) Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’ for my money,” John Lennon would tell Rolling Stone in 1970.

    A roadhouse veteran by his early 20s, Lewis took off for Memphis in 1956 and showed up at the studios of Sun Records, the musical home of Elvis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Told by company founder Sam Phillips to go learn some rock ‘n roll, Lewis returned and soon hurried off “Whole Lotta Shakin’” in a single take.

    “I knew it was a hit when I cut it,” he later said. “Sam Phillips thought it was gonna be too risque, it couldn’t make it. If that’s risque, well, I’m sorry.”

    In 1986, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and others, he made the inaugural class of inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and joined the Country Hall of Fame this year. The Killer not only outlasted his contemporaries but saw his life and music periodically reintroduced to younger fans, including the 1989 biopic “Great Balls of Fire,” starring Dennis Quaid, and Ethan Coen’s 2022 documentary “Trouble in Mind.” A 2010 Broadway music, “Million Dollar Quartet,” was inspired by a recording session that featured Lewis, Elvis, Perkins and Cash.

    He won a Grammy in 1987 as part of an interview album that was cited for best spoken word recording, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005. The following year, “Whole Lotta Shakin’” was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, whose board praised the “propulsive boogie piano that was perfectly complemented by the drive of J.M. Van Eaton’s energetic drumming. The listeners to the recording, like Lewis himself, had a hard time remaining seated during the performance.”

    A classmate at Bible school, Pearry Green, remembered meeting Lewis years later and asking if he was still playing the devil’s music.

    “Yes, I am,” Lewis answered. “But you know it’s strange, the same music that they kicked me out of school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is, I know I am playing for the devil and they don’t.”

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    This story has been updated to clarify where Lewis’ home is located.

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  • Review: ‘Black Adam,’ a superhero franchise born on a Rock

    Review: ‘Black Adam,’ a superhero franchise born on a Rock

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    Not long into “Black Adam,” a preteen boy looks up at the muscled hulk of Dwayne Johnson and begs for his help: “We could use a superhero right now.” Speak for yourself, kid.

    Do we need another superhero with another convoluted origin story that stretches back thousands of years and fulfills a whacko destiny? Do we really need another clutch of secondary level heroes to muddy focus? We’re almost 40 deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a dozen in the DC universe. You can almost smell the fumes now, can’t you?

    “Black Adam” isn’t bad, it’s just predictable and color-by-numbers, stealing from other films like an intellectual property super-villain. But Johnson is a natural in the title role, mixing might with humor and able to deliver those necessary wooden lines. Why he hasn’t had a starring role in a DC or Marvel superhero flick until now is astonishing — c’mon, he’s built himself into a freaking superhero in street clothes already.

    Like Marvel’s “Eternals,” “Black Adam” gets out of the blocks very sluggishly with the tangled tale of our setting — Kahndaq, a fictional Middle Eastern kingdom in 2,600 B.C. that has wizards, a blood-thirsty king, a magical crown and Eternium, a rare metallic ore with energy-manipulating properties (Hello, Vibranium from “Black Panther”).

    Flash-forward to present day, where Kahndaq is under the cruel rule of the organized crime syndicate Intergang and its citizens are ripe to rebel. They think they may have a leader in Black Adam (here Teth Adam, when he is introduced), who is released from his 5,000-year-long tomb and is naturally cranky. Is he a force for good or bad? (Or for a new sub-franchise?) The answer is yes to all.

    Yet the other superheroes in the DC pantheon aren’t sure about the new guy and send what can only be described as the Plan B of muscle from leftover members of a knock-off organization called the Justice Society of America.

    There’s Doctor Fate (a dollar-store Doctor Strange played by Pierce Brosnan, who somehow keeps his dignity), Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo, nicely playing a dweeby and always hungry giant), Aldis Hodge as a one-note Hawkman and Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, who can control — checks notes — the wind. They apparently left at home the superhero with the ability to open jars.

    Black Adam is more than a match for all of them combined. He can fly, move as fast as The Flash, catch rockets, deflect bullets and harness his own bluish electricity. Mostly he does this weirdly passive thing of just floating. “I kneel before no one” he intones, which might explain it.

    Director Jaume Collet-Serra and the design team do a great job in every department but are let down by a derivative and baggy screenplay by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani that goes from one violent scene to another like a video game in order to paper over a plot both undercooked and overcooked. At one point, with the audience exhausted by all the carnage, they introduce skeletons who rise up as a legion from hell, just what we wanted.

    They nicely include pockets of humor that DC has not always done well — a recurring bit with “Baby Come Back” and teaching Black Adam satire are fun; a Clint Eastwood gag fails — and there may have been three natural endings piling up before the final, manipulative one. (“This can only end one way,” says the script. Don’t believe it.)

    Amidst the punching superheroes are two humans — a rebel leader and her skateboard-and-comics-loving pre-teen son, played superbly by Sarah Shahi and Bodhi Sabongui, respectively. Comedian Mohammed Amer is a much-needed bolt of bright humor.

    Most intriguing — and the angle most fruitful to lean into — is the notion of hero itself. The Justice Society members are shocked to find that they aren’t seen as heroic to the residents of Kahndaq, living 27 years under oppression. Black Adam has come to help, even if he’s a little more violent. Residents wonder where were the guys with all the superpowers for almost three decades while they suffered — a nice dig at Western nations.

    “There are only heroes and villains. Heroes don’t kill people,” a confused Hawkman states. Black Adam replies: “Well, I do.” It is Shahiby’s character who notes that it’s easy to call someone a hero when you’re the one drawing the line.

    The number of — ahem — call-backs to other films is pretty sad — “Tomb Raider,” “Back to the Future” and plenty of “Star Wars” (even, unforgivably, the line “You’re our only hope”.) It’s a film that is sometimes self-aware, as when the kid urges Black Adam to come up with a catchphrase that will sell lunchboxes.

    He does, but it makes little sense: “Tell them, ‘The man in black sent you.’” Wait, he was sent by someone else? Do they mean Johnny Cash? Actually that may be a clue. What the filmmakers probably had in mind was cash — selling those lunchboxes.

    “Black Adam,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release that hits cinemas on Friday, is rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, intense action and some language. Running time: 124 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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    MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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    Online: https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/black-adam

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    Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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  • Jerry Lee Lewis, Keith Whitley join the Country Hall of Fame

    Jerry Lee Lewis, Keith Whitley join the Country Hall of Fame

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    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two artists who started their careers outside of country music were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as early rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis and bluegrass performer-turned-country star Keith Whitley joined the ranks.

    Lewis, the 87-year-old artist nicknamed “The Killer,” was unable to attend the induction ceremony on Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee, due to guidance from his doctor. But his fellow country stars Hank Williams Jr. and Kris Kristofferson showed up in his stead to accept and honor the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.

    Whitley’s widow, fellow country star Lorrie Morgan, accepted the medallion on his behalf during the ceremony featuring performances by Garth Brooks, Mickey Guyton, Chris Isaak, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert and Alabama. Also inducted this year was music executive Joe Galante, who had a key role in marketing country music to wider pop and rock audiences starting in the 1980s.

    Lewis, from Ferriday, Louisiana, grew up on country music, but Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, turned him into a rockabilly star, with hits like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

    Williams, who also helped induct Lewis into the Rock & Hall of Fame in 1986, recalled Lewis spending time at his home when he was a kid and listening to Lewis’ rock songs on the radio. He said Lewis taught him that entertaining was about more than skill.

    “Jerry Lee doesn’t ask for your attention, he demands it,” Williams said. “He doesn’t take a stage, he commands it.”

    In Memphis, Lewis played alongside Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash in the now famous Million Dollar Quartet. Lewis’ career was nearly derailed over the scandal arising from his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra, and he faced a backlash from fans during a tour in England in 1958, when crowds became combative.

    Lewis was abandoned by concert promoters for several years before mounting a return to the country charts in the late 1960s. He had No. 1 hits on the Billboard Country Chart with “There Must Be More to Love Than This,” “Would You Take Another Chance on Me” and “Chantilly Lace.” His other top country singles included “What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me),” ″She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye” and “To Make Love Sweeter for You.”

    Isaak delivered a rollicking version of “Great Balls of Fire” during the ceremony and 85-year-old actor and singer Kristofferson made a rare public appearance to help unveil Lewis’ plaque, which will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame rotunda.

    Morgan was moved to tears during her speech, noting that her late husband would feel so undeserving of the honor. Whitley’s first work as a musician was in bluegrass, when he and Ricky Skaggs started playing as teenagers in Ralph Stanley’s band, the Clinch Mountain Boys.

    “My whole family, we’ve all missed him together and all the fans who loved Keith and visited his gravesite all the time,” she said.

    That bluegrass background made Whitley stand out as a country singer in the 1980s, where he brought tender emotion and incredible vocal range to hits including “When You Say Nothing at All” and “I’m No Stranger to the Rain.”

    But his career was ended too short, spanning just four years and seven months on the Billboard charts before his 1989 death from alcohol poisoning at age 34. But the singer from Sandy Hook, Kentucky, continued to influence numerous country singers who came up alongside him, including Brooks, who praised his pure country singing and authenticity.

    “Truth, honesty. The guy could outsing 99 percent of us,” Brooks said.

    Galante was the head of RCA Nashville in his 30s and both Morgan and Whitley were among the hit artists that he brought to success, including Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Vince Gill, The Judds, Martina McBride and more. He helped the band Alabama achieve crossover success with multi-platinum hits.

    “I was a label head, but I was a huge fan of their music,” Galante said. “And it’s all about the music at the end of the day.”

    ——

    Online:

    https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/

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