Classic: The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings 1956-1963 [Box set, Import]

Jerry Lee Lewis | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 28, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 8
• Format: Box set, Import
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Bear Family
• ASIN: B000001AV0
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #162,759 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can I give it 25 stars?, March 18, 2006

By 

Thomas Plotkin (West Hartford CT, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Classic: The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings 1956-1963 (Audio CD)

This massive box consists of the first act of the Killer's career, the complete output from his years at Sun Records, that asylum/Camelot in Memphis, from 1956-1962, wherein a bible school dropout with a high country tenor, a ten-fingered demolition derby piano attack out of boogie-woogie, and a miscegenation-spurred penchant for pouring blues idioms into his hillbilly music puts him on the Rushmore of the Founding Fathers of rock and roll, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles.

Unbelievable, but Jerry Lee, at 71, is the last man standing:[FOOTNOTE WRITTEN YEARS LATER -- I used that phrase while his then-forthcoming comeback album of that title was still tentatively called Pilgrim; I will always wonder if someone in the Lewis circle copped "Last Man Standing" from my review, the CD was re-named not long after this appeared...]; of the pioneering generation of hell-raising teen-age eccentrics unleashed in 1955-58 at Sun Records - Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich -- only Jerry Lee still walks the earth. Call it the William S. Burroughs syndrome -- some individuals, no matter how hard they live,how much wreckage they left behind, or how much they abused themselves, manage to frighten away Death himself. Listen to this feast of music, and hear a man possessed by the shaking, the fire, the breathlessness. There was no wilder wildman, no greater genius in the rock and roll firnament. Beside Jerry Lee, Iggy Pop, Axl Rose, Keith Richard, Tupac, seem like milquetoasts and wimps. This is the real thing, timeless and atavistic, straight from the the landscape of William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy -- sin,lust, madness, salvation. And don't be scared of the alternate takes -- Jerry Lee, along with Charlie Parker, never plays a song the same way twice, and like Bird, JLL's alternates are often better than the master. Even the surprising amount of country ballads are raw and whiskey-soaked, dangerous, evoking what Hank Williams ruefully said to his mom: that audiences didn't come to his shows for the music, they came for the fights. The best spent 100.00 + bucks I ever made...As The Killer would say, "Think about it..."
As a non-musical bonus, this set contains the legendary between-takes debate between producer/Sun Records founder Sam Philips and JLL, when the latter walked away from his piano and refused to cut Great Balls of Fire because of it's sacreligious use of pentecostal imagery. The fight goes from theology (Jerry preaches, literally, that man is born in sin and must seek salvation and singing Great Balls ain't gonna get him there;Sam says music is a balm and fanaticism is bad), then JLL gets distracted by his band's talk of oral sex, forgets about his impending damnation, or else embraces it, and cuts not one, but several fearsome takes of "Great Balls." The dialog is priceless, (hearing JLL go from hell-fire preaching to a lascivious joke in a millisecond!) and says more about JLL's sinner/preacher schizophrenia (shared by the USA at large), and Sam Philips' charismatic genius, than the collected works of Greil Marcus.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for any fan., November 27, 1999

By 

Eric Anderson (Lansing, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic: The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings 1956-1963 (Audio CD)

this is an unbelievable box set, by the king of box sets - Bear Family Records. If you are a fan of JL Lewis then you need every second that was recorded in the Sun studios. The banter - the comments - the false starts. All 8 discs are excellent with only some repetition, but it doesn' even matter. I have owwned it for over 2 years and still listen to some of it every week.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential listening, July 22, 2002

By 

Bill Taylor (Romney,WV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Classic: The Definitive Edition of His Sun Recordings 1956-1963 (Audio CD)

This box set contains fresh,vibrant vocals of pop songs,old songs,standards,Blues,jazz,gospel,spirituals,ballads,rocknroll ,new country,and old,all wrapped around a rule breaking piano sound. This box is you see,much more than a box of someone's recordings,it is a roadmap of American music and cultural shifts in this country as imagined and seen through one southern boy'eyes. Jerry Lee was all of 20 years old when most of this astounding flurry of musicality took place in the then,bustling den of creativity ,Sun Records. Check it out,none of the Killer's contemporaries came close to the diversity in their Choice of material as he did. These sides are ,in my estimation MUST HAVES for any music lover,or social scientist.The sound is classic,the liner notes superb,vocals are clear and sweet as honey,and so is the pianoplaying,the supporting cast are all top notch Sun session men,real roots music,laid down in several takes at the most.You can feel it!