“I was with my parents in Amarillo, and there was this blinding dust storm–you couldn’t even see across the street. Everybody had bandannas across their faces to keep the dust out. We were at a Pontiac dealership, and this guy was selling cars. Suddenly, he said, ‘And now we’ve got a kid up here that’s gonna play a little piano for you.’ And it was Jerry Lee Lewis–just him and a piano, flailing away.
“The wind was blowing so hard, it was knocking the microphone stand over, and you couldn’t hardly see the stage through all the dust. Jerry Lee would play a couple songs, then the guy would sell his Pontiacs, and he gave away hot dogs all covered in dirt from the storm. It was just surreal, and my little 7- or 8-year-old mind was saying, ‘Damn–that’s what I want to do when I grow up!’”
–Joe Ely, Los Angeles Times, November 17, 1992
That was the day Joe Ely decided he wanted to be a rock and roll star. We may never know what the pre-fame Killer played for the Amarillo car shoppers that day, but it was enough to galvanize the young Ely toward a life in music.
It took a little longer for young Bruce Springsteen to discover Jerry Lee Lewis, but even though Elvis got to him first, Bruce counts Lewis among his formative influences too. So it’s appropriate that the first time Bruce and Jerry Lee shared a stage together, Joe was in the house as well.
The date was May 20, 1993, and Bruce was on tour in Dublin with his new touring band. Bruce and Joe had only met the day before, but they had become fast friends, and tonight would mark the second consecutive night the two men would perform together on stage. They played one of Joe’s songs, “Settle For Love,” to open the encore set, and Joe left the stage immediately after.
Jerry Lee came out four songs later, which must have felt like quite the missed opportunity for Ely. The Boss gave deference to The Killer, who was nearing sixty at the time, dropping into the background to support Lewis on his signature 1957 hit single, “Great Balls of Fire.”
“Great Balls of Fire” was a smash hit upon release, selling over one million copies in ten days and stopping just one spot shy of the top of Billboard Hot 100. (It would reach #1 in the U.K and on the U.S. country chart, though). It remains one of the most well-known and most instantly recognizable rock songs ever, ranking #96 on Rolling Stone’s Greatest Songs of All Time list.
It was also one of the most electrifying songs ever, certainly at the time of its release. Lewis was legendary for his possessed performances, and he was known to kick his piano bench during particularly passionate moments, without regard for who might be behind it.
(In the legendary clip above from The Steve Allen show, the host was none too pleased with the flying bench. While you won’t see Lewis send it flying, if you pay attention you will certainly see the bench flying back across the screen when an unamused Allen hurls it back.)
By 1993, though, Lewis had slowed down, and while the crowd was enthusiastic in their response, the performance itself was plodding at times and uneven throughout.
They made up for it (barely) in Cleveland two years later.
At the inaugural concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band served as the house band for Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. That might sound like a dream combination unless you were aware of the famously bad blood between Berry and Lewis, who allegedly once set his piano on fire at the end of his set just to raise the bar for Berry to clear immediately after.
On this night, Lewis was not pleased to learn that Berry and the E Streeters would open the show with “Johnny B. Goode,” and his foul mood reportedly infected the band as well. “That was one of the only bad shows I’ve ever done with anybody, let alone the E Street Band,” Van Zandt (who joined the band that night for their ephemeral reunion) told biographer Peter Ames Carlin. “Nobody was into it, and it was just so weird. I didn’t get the feeling Bruce wanted to be there, and it was all uncomfortable.”
Watching that performance below, it’s hard to pick out any tension on the stage. But while their performance is certainly more polished than the last time Bruce and Jerry Lee shared a stage, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about it, either.
Bruce took another crack at “Great Balls of Fire” with Joe Grushecky in 2004, and another with the E Street Band in 2009, but it took until 2014 for his definitive performance.
It came when the High Hopes Tour stopped in Houston, where Bruce’s old friend Joe Ely reunited with him on stage. I was there for the sound check that day, so I know they’d planned to play Joe’s hit single, “All Just to Get to You.”
Something happened between sound check and showtime, though. On a night full of audibles (Bruce even audibled the opening song, switching out “This Is Your Sword” for “Seeds” literally seconds before the show started), Bruce mixed up the encores, too. Instead of playing Joe’s song or Bruce’s own setlisted “The Wall” and “Born in the U.S.A.,” the two singer-songwriters paid homage to two rock icons instead, covering “Great Balls of Fire” and “Lucille.”
Joe took lead vocals on the former, channeling The Killer in his peak glory. That performance of “Great Balls of Fire” was fierce and loose–so loose, in fact, that neither Bruce nor Joe seemed to know how to exit the barely-two-minute-long song.
Watch Bruce spontaneously decide to keep it going when Joe tries to end it at around the 1:50 mark. From that point forward, they fly by the seat of their pants.
Update 1/3/2024: At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2022, attendees (including this blogger) were delighted by a surprise encore performance at the ceremony’s conclusion: a loose, seemingly unplanned team-up on “Great Balls of Fire” by Bruce and John Mellencamp.
Great Balls of Fire
First performed: October 29, 1990 (San Fernando Valley, CA)
Last performed: November 5, 2022 (Los Angeles, CA)
Yeah, there wasn’t really any interaction on the stage with Jerry Lee, unlike the Joe Ely version. That was rockin’!