Jerry Lee Lewis 1935-2022

The title of the 2006 duets project that gave Jerry Lee Lewis his biggest-selling album in a career stretching over half a century was both a reverential nod to fallen comrades, and the typically  showman-like brag of a rock’n’roll bad boy nicknamed The Killer.

- Terry Staunton

Last Man Standing alluded to the fact he had outlived all of his formative years Sun Records contemporaries (Presley, Perkins, Orbison, Cash), but it could also be read as a taunt to others from the genre’s roots.

At the time of the record’s release Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers and Fats Domino were all still gigging, although it’s likely Lewis doubted any of them had the pulling power to lure such A-list talent as Clapton, Page, Springsteen, three Stones and a Beatle into the studio. His combative attitude to those deemed his rivals was legendary, and as late as 2015 he told The Guardian, “I listened to other people, but I could never find anybody that was better than me.”

Last Man Standing, which spawned two further duets collections, was the latest in a string of comebacks for the boy born in Ferriday, Louisiana, on 29 September 1935. The scandal of a 1957 marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, resulted in a near blanket ban from US radio and the cancellation of all bar three shows of a 37-date UK tour, but he would be enthusiastically embraced by Europe again in the mid-60s, kicking against the tide of beat groups with the acclaimed Live At The StarClub, Hamburg album.