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| Country Memories | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1977 | |||
| Recorded | 1976−77 | |||
| Venue | Nashville, Tennessee | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Label | Mercury | |||
| Producer | Jerry Kennedy | |||
| Jerry Lee Lewis chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
Country Memories is a studio album by the American musician Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Mercury Records in 1977. [2] It peaked at No. 21 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. [3]
By 1977, Lewis's long relationship with Mercury Records and producer Jerry Kennedy was coming to an end. He had signed with Smash, a division of Mercury, in 1963 and in 1968 began an incredible run on the country charts with 17 Top 10 hits, including four chart toppers, but by the mid-seventies his albums were beginning to sound overproduced and stale as the hits dried up. Years of constant touring, boozing, and pill popping had also caught up to Lewis, who would begin to have ongoing health problems (such as bleeding ulcers and stomach tears) for the first time in 1977. His voice had also grown noticeably hoarse. He was still very much in-demand as a performer, making guest appearances on the late-night TV show The Midnight Special and selling out shows, but he would only record one more album for Mercury, 1978's Jerry Lee Keeps Rockin' .
Lewis's last big hit on Mercury was "Middle Age Crazy", a song written by Sonny Throckmorton about a man who wants to stay young forever, a poignant theme for Lewis. In the liner notes to the 2006 retrospective A Half Century of Hits, Kennedy remembers the session coincided with one of Lewis's first hospitalizations, and that "the Killer" "was as white as a sheet. I was surprised we got anything from him." The track - which features legendary blind session man Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano, not Lewis - had been pre-recorded by Kennedy in advance, leaving Jerry Lee to overdub his vocal. "That was our last big hit," Lewis recalled to biographer Rick Bragg in 2014. "That's something Jerry Kennedy wanted to prove he could do. The voices and everything, except mine. And I brought it home and played it, and I played it, and I learned it...And I went up there to Nashville, and he set it up and everything, and I walked up to the microphone, took one take on it, and that was it." The single went to number 4 on the Billboard country chart. A second single, the Bobby Braddock ballad "Come On In", also hit the top 10.
Jerry Lee Lewis was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock 'n' roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, and early recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. "Crazy Arms" sold 300,000 copies in the Southern United States, but it was his 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" that shot Lewis to worldwide fame. He followed this with the major hits "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential".
Robert Joseph Bare Sr. is an American country singer and songwriter, best known for the songs "Marie Laveau", "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away from Home". He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician.
"Chantilly Lace" is a 1958 rock and roll song by The Big Bopper. It was produced by Jerry Kennedy, and reached No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Bruce Channel covered the song on his 1962 album, Hey! Baby. The song was also covered by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1972.
Claude "Curly" Putman Jr. was an American songwriter.
Robert Valentine Braddock is an American country songwriter and record producer. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Braddock has contributed numerous hit songs during more than 40 years in the industry, including 13 number-one hit singles.
All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology is a 1993 box set collecting 42 songs by rock and roll and rockabilly pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis from the mid-1950s to the 1980s, including 27 charting hits. The album has been critically well received. In 2003, Rolling Stone listed the album at #245 in its list of "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", maintaining its rating in a 2012 revised list, and dropping to #325 in the 2020 update. Country Music: The Rough Guide indicated that "[t]his is the kind of full-bodied, decades-spanning treatment that Lewis's long, diverse career more than well deserves."
James Fron "Sonny" Throckmorton is an American country music singer and songwriter. Known primarily for his songwriting, Throckmorton has had more than 1,000 of his songs recorded by various country singers. He has also had minor success as a recording artist, having released two major-label albums: The Last Cheater's Waltz in 1978 on Mercury Records and Southern Train in 1986 on Warner Bros. Records. Throckmorton is a member of the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame, and has been awarded Songwriter of the Year by both Broadcast Music Incorporated and the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
"I Feel Like Loving You Again" is a song written by Bobby Braddock and Sonny Throckmorton, and recorded by American country music artist T. G. Sheppard. It was first released in 1978 on Throckmorton's debut album, Last Cheater's Waltz. It was re-released in November 1980 as the third single from Sheppard's album Smooth Sailin'. The song was Sheppard's sixth number one on the country chart. The single stayed at number one for one week and spent a total of ten weeks on the country chart.
Another Place, Another Time is the eighth album by the musician Jerry Lee Lewis, released in 1968 by Smash Records. It was Lewis's "comeback album" and features a stripped down, "hardcore" country sound that yielded two top five country hits, his first major chart success in a decade.
She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye is the 13th album by pianist and singer Jerry Lee Lewis. It was released on Mercury Records in 1970.
A Taste of Country is a compilation album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on the Sun Record Company label in 1970.
Soul My Way is the seventh album by Jerry Lee Lewis released on the Smash label in 1967.
Would You Take Another Chance on Me? is an album by Jerry Lee Lewis that was released on Mercury Records in 1971.
The Killer Rocks On is an album by Jerry Lee Lewis that was released on Mercury Records in 1972.
Country Class is the 32nd album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Mercury Records in 1976. Cam Mullins was credited for the string and horn arrangements on "Let's Put It Back Together", "Jerry Lee's Rock & Roll Revival Show" and "The Closest Thing to You".
Jerry Lee Keeps Rockin' is the 34th studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Mercury Records in 1978.
Jerry Lee Lewis is a studio album by American rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis, released by Elektra Records in 1979.
Killer Country is a studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Elektra Records in 1980. The album peaked at No. 35 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart.
"I Wish I Was Eighteen Again" is a song written by Sonny Throckmorton in 1979.
My Fingers Do The Talkin' is Jerry Lee Lewis' first album for MCA, released in January 1983. The album peaked at No. 62 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart.
