48. Jerry Lee Lewis - Live at the Star Club, Hamburg (1964)

Tracks: Mean Woman Blues // High School Confidential // Money // Matchbox // What'd I Say Part 1 // What'd I Say Part 2 // Great Balls of Fire // Good Golly Miss Molly // Lewis Boogie // Your Cheating Heart // Hound Dog // Long Tall Sally // Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On // Down the Line

Review:

My complaints about this album are basically the same as those I had about the Little Richard album a while back - yeah, it's fun and all in small doses, but Jesus Christ is this album a chore to sit through. Forty minutes that feels like four hours, in which Lewis slams (and I do mean slams, and with a frequent disregard for whether his backing band can keep with him) his way through a selection of originals and standards. The performance is great, I'll own - Lewis' lunatic speed-freak sexually deviant nature has been well-documented, and it's all on display on this record. This is probably the rawest and most sexual album we've had up to this point. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to carry an album on rawness alone and, as much as I hate to sound like a whiny 1950s father figure, most of the songs just sort of sound the same - and not in a good, Bo Diddley sort of way. It's good, but I really have to be in the mood for it - and given that lately I've mostly been listening to ambient house and folk music, it's fair to say that I may not be at my most receptive just now.

So, for what it is it's pretty good. Lewis is wild and crazy, his song selection is good, and the Nashville Teens do a great job on the backing tracks. I think my main problem is that the guys seem to favour a "smash and howl" approach where I would generally be more in favour of a chugging groove. "What'd I Say" and "Money" both have neat rhythms, though, and really a lot of the songs have somethng to recommend thems. I tell you this, though - I'd better pick-up the pace, because I'm getting might impatient for the advent of funk music.

So what deep insight do I have to offer into this album? It's really good, but also really wearying. If I were a tipsy German dude sitting in the audience then I bet I would have had the time of my life. As it stands, though, I just.

Don't.

Care.

7/10.

Download: Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On MP3