| Killer Country | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1980 | |||
| Recorded | 1977−80 | |||
| Venue | Nashville, Tennessee | |||
| Genre | Country | |||
| Label | Elektra | |||
| Producer | Eddie Kilroy | |||
| Jerry Lee Lewis chronology | ||||
| ||||
Killer Country is a studio album by Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Elektra Records in 1980. [1] The album peaked at No. 35 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart. [2]
Killer Country was produced by Eddie Kilroy, who had been involved with resurrecting Lewis's career back in 1968 when "Another Place, Another Time" hit the country charts. The single "Thirty-Nine and Holding" would rise to number 6, Lewis's first Top 10 country hit since "Middle Age Crazy" in 1977 and his last to date. However, it is Lewis's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that is often singled out for praise; although it only reached number 18 on the charts, Lewis altered the spirit of the song much like he had years earlier when he recorded a boogie-woogie version of "Me and Bobby McGee," his ravaged voice giving the usually optimistic Judy Garland classic a forlorn vulnerability. "It had a certain feeling to it," Lewis told biographer Rick Bragg in 2014, "like a religious undertone. A something that you seldom ever can hear." The album also features Jerry Lee's first ever recording of "Folsom Prison Blues."
Sometime before the release of Killer Country, Lewis went to the Caribou Ranch recording studio in Colorado and cut more than thirty songs from a wide variety of genres, but Elektra rejected them. Extensively bootlegged, many Lewis's aficionados praise the recordings as some of his best. Lewis's relationship with Elektra soon soured when its Nashville division was taken over by Jimmy Bowen. Lewis and Bowen did not get on, to say the least; in the liner notes to the 2006 box set A Half Century of Hits, Colin Escott recounts, "Instead of appreciating the chance to work with someone from his era, Bowen saw no chance of recouping the $300,000 Lewis was to be paid for his next four albums. In his autobiography Bowen says he offered Lewis $350,000 to leave the label, then tells an astonishing tale of sending some of his guys to mollify Lewis, only to have him pull a gun on them. 'Then he muttered something about killing me,' Bowen writes. If anything, the story became even more bizarre as Bowen sent a crew to tap Lewis's phone to gather evidence, only to find the FBI already tapping it for other reasons."
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
| Robert Christgau | B+ [4] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |  [5] |
| (The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide | [1] |
The New York Times wrote that the album "keeps Mr. Lewis's singing and playing, together with a fine, rocking small band, in the foreground most of the way through, and while it's obviously aimed at a country market, it should also please Mr. Lewis's rock-oriented fans more than any of his other recent LP's... He sounds confident, inspired and ready for 1981." [6] Robert Christgau praised the "magnificently over-the-hill" "Thirty-Nine and Holding". [4]
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".
My Kind of Country is the eighth studio album by American country music singer Reba McEntire, released October 15, 1984. It was her second studio album for MCA Records. My Kind of Country peaked at No. 13 on Billboard's Country Music Albums chart. Two tracks from the album rose to No. 1 on the Country Singles chart: "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave".
No Secrets is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, released by Elektra Records on November 28, 1972.
Boys in the Trees is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, released by Elektra Records in April 1978.
New Harvest...First Gathering is the eighteenth solo studio album by American entertainer Dolly Parton. It was released on February 14, 1977, by RCA Victor. It is significant for being Parton's first self-produced album, as well as her first effort aimed specifically at the pop charts.
Rockabilly Blues is an album by American country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1980. Highlights include "Cold Lonesome Morning," which had some minor chart success, "Without Love," by his son-in-law, Nick Lowe, and a cover of the witty "The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over." The first two of the aforementioned songs were the only singles from the album, though "Without Love" hardly enjoyed any chart success, peaking at No. 78. "The Twentieth Century is Almost Over" was re-recorded five years later by Cash and Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, collectively known as The Highwaymen, on their first album entitled Highwayman, though it was, in essence, a duet with Nelson.
Habits Old and New is the thirty-first studio album by American musician Hank Williams Jr. and was released under Elektra Records/Curb Records in June 1980. Habits Old and New was Williams' third full-length album in a fourteen-month span, following Family Tradition and Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound that were released in April and November 1979. It was also his fifth album on the Elektra/Curb label.
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."
Kellie Pickler is the second studio album by American country music singer Kellie Pickler. The lead-off single, "Don't You Know You're Beautiful", was debuted at the 43rd Academy Of Country Music awards and peaked at number 21 on Hot Country Songs. The album was released via BNA Records/19 Recordings on September 30, 2008. Since the albums' release, three more singles have charted; "Best Days of Your Life" at number 9, "Didn't You Know How Much I Loved You" at number 14 and "Makin' Me Fall in Love Again" at number 30.
Back to the Barrooms is the thirty-first studio album by American country music singer Merle Haggard, released in October 1980. He is backed by Norm Hamlet and Don Markham of The Strangers.
Major Moves is the thirty-seventh studio album by American musician Hank Williams Jr. It was released by Warner Bros. Records in May 1984. “Attitude Adjustment,” “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” and the title track were released as singles. The album reached No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart and has been certified Platinum by the RIAA.
The Pressure Is On is the thirty-third studio album by American musician Hank Williams Jr. It was released by Elektra/Curb Records in August 1981 and was Williams' seventh studio album on the Elektra/Curb label.
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 Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me) is the ninth album by Jerry Lee Lewis. It was released on Smash Records in 1969.
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.
The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists is a double album by Jerry Lee Lewis released on Mercury Records in 1973. It was recorded in London and features Lewis teaming up with British musicians, including Peter Frampton and Albert Lee.
Jerry Lee Lewis is a studio album by American rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis, released by Elektra Records in 1979.
When Two Worlds Collide is a studio album by the American musician Jerry Lee Lewis, released on Elektra Records in 1980.
Rock & Roll Time is the 41st and final studio album by American singer Jerry Lee Lewis, released on November 7, 2014, by Vanguard Records. The album featured several big name friends as musicians including Keith Richards, Band guitarist Robbie Robertson, Neil Young and Nils Lofgren. The album peaked at number 33 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart and number 30 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart.
