The legendary, Jerry Lee Lewis, who has a colorful and historical music legacy, recently recorded a new album with gospel covers in Nashville. Lewis has been in the music industry since the 1950’s, performing alongside the biggest legends of all time, including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and many others. He recorded with Sun Records the great studio in Memphis, Tennessee, which is responsible for recording some of the greatest music in history. Recently, at age 84, Lewis decided he wanted to record a long-planned album of gospel classics that he’d known since his childhood in Ferriday, Louisiana, songs he knew before he helped kick-start rock & roll with hits like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

Last year was a rough one for Lewis, as he suffered a major stroke in February 2019 which left him with mobility issues and those close to him didn’t think he would survive. He spent three months in a rehab facility and was concerned he would never play the piano again. He spent time relearning to walk and trying to gain use of his right hand. Lewis described the pain, “I’ve never experienced anything like it. It was very challenging, and it was a very emotional experience. I didn’t know what was going on. I woke up in the hospital.” He couldn’t help but think about death. Lewis shares, “And I just did some heavy praying, and tried to get back on the right track.”

Before the recording session, Lewis told his team and producer T-Bone Burnett that he didn’t want a piano in the room at all, his right hand wasn’t working, and he just wanted to sing. In a Rolling Stone article, it is described that Lewis sat on the piano stool and couldn’t help but lift his right hand onto the keys. To his own surprise, his fingers started moving. “I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it. I never experienced anything like that. There I was playing piano with my right hand. I thought I would never play again.”

Lewis spent two days laying down tracks with guitarists Kenny Lovelace (who has played with Lewis since 1966) and James Burton, plus Lee Ann Womack and gospel legends the McCrary Sisters on backup vocals. After shaking off nerves, Lewis eventually loosened up; at one point, he told the band about the time, when he was a kid, he walked across a narrow bridge 150 feet above the Mississippi River on a dare. “I was in shock, for starters, that we were even there,” says Burnett. “He went from saying, ‘I can’t play piano,’ to sitting down, picking up his right hand and playing. His family all welled up. That’s the power of love, you know?”

Elton John once shared in an interview with Leah Harper in 2013, “Great Balls of Fire,” “the piano playing that I had heard had been more sedate. My dad collected George Shearing records, but this was the first time I heard someone beat the shit out of a piano. When I saw Little Richard at the Harrow Granada, he played it standing up, but Jerry Lee Lewis actually jumped on the piano! This was astonishing to me, that people could do that. Those records had such a huge effect on me, and they were just so great. I learned to play like that.”