Maps of Music

Memphis Beat (1966)

Where the lyrics of Memphis Beat take you, and where it was really made.

Two cover songs were picked as singles, and neither reached the Billboard charts; the album itself stalled at number 145.

Key places

Recorded at Phillips Studio in Memphis (1966)

Recording site Ardent Studios — More than half the songs on this album were recorded on January 5 and 6, 1966 at Phillips Studio in Memphis. The point is placed at city-center level for Memphis. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Memphis Beat: fifth album by Jerry Lee Lewis
• Released on the Smash label in 1966
• Mostly up-tempo boogie and blues standards with a hard rock sound
• Track list of 12 songs, opening with the title track by M. Haddington, D. Lipscomb and A. Reynolds
• Covers include Ray Charles, George Jones' country classic and a Swamp pop song by Cookie and his Cupcakes
• Only a few of the songs were written by Lewis himself

Background

• Lewis's commercial slump continued until 1968
• The slump ended when he finally broke on the country charts with "Another Place, Another Time"
• In the mid-1960s Lewis recorded one album after another of other people's songs

Recording

• More than half the songs were recorded on January 5 and 6, 1966 at Phillips Studio in Memphis
• The remaining selections came from a rare New York City session eight months earlier
• Lewis's earliest sessions at Smash in 1963 also supplied tracks
• "Lincoln Limousine" is one of the few songs Lewis composed, a tribute to John F. Kennedy
• Joe Bonomo, in Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found, finds the track odd and too ambiguous to explain
• "Too Young" is a piano lounge number that Bonomo finds very funny
• Two cover songs were chosen as singles: Sham the Sham's "Memphis Beat" and Ray Charles' "Sticks and Stones"

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · fr.wikipedia.org

Artist

Career

• American country and rock and roll pianist, singer, and songwriter, nicknamed "The Killer".
• Made first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans; early Sun Records recordings in 1956 in Memphis.
• 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" brought worldwide fame; followed by "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless", and "High School Confidential".
• 1964 live album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg is widely regarded as one of the greatest live rock albums.
• Switched to country in 1968 with "Another Place, Another Time", which revived his career; 30 songs reached the Billboard country top 10 across his career.
• Last Man Standing (2006) was his best-selling release; Mean Old Man (2010) was another major seller.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986) and the Country Music Hall of Fame (2022).

Members

• Solo artist; the Million Dollar Quartet session on Sun Records included Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Memphis Beat was released in 1966
• The album stalled at number 145 on the Billboard albums chart
• Neither chosen single, Sham the Sham's "Memphis Beat" or Ray Charles' "Sticks and Stones", reached the Billboard charts

Reappraisal

• Bruce Eder of AllMusic praised the album
• Eder wrote that Lewis veered hard into country and country-pop with Country Songs for City Folks, then came roaring back with Memphis Beat
• Eder noted the album's hardest rocking sounds in years
• Eder described the band as good as any Lewis had ever recorded with
• Lewis biographer Rick Bragg wrote in 2014 about Lewis's mid-1960s output
• Bragg wrote that Lewis cut one album after another of other people's music, and that none of it was new

Records

• Billboard albums chart: number 145
• Lewis's commercial slump continued until 1968
• The country breakthrough came in 1968 with "Another Place, Another Time"

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• "Lincoln Limousine" is a tribute to John F. Kennedy and one of the few songs Lewis composed himself
• Bonomo calls the track odd and ambiguous, hard to explain even by its writer's motives
• "Too Young" is a piano lounge number that Bonomo finds very funny
• The album includes "Mathilda" from Cookie and his Cupcakes, a Swamp pop classic
• Both chosen singles failed to reach the Billboard charts

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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