Mercury Smashes ..... And Rockin' Sessions

Although this review is several years late, mainly due to my lack of enthusiasm for this set, I still find it difficult to believe that I’m giving Jerry Lee Lewis and Bear Family less than 5 stars ... but even the 3 stars I’ve decided upon may be too generous. Admittedly, it must be said that the sound reproduction is well up to the usual Bear Family standard and the overall presentation equally so.What’s wrong then? First I’ll take the overall content. This is supposed to be the second part of Jerry’s studio recordings for Mercury, covering the years 1970-1977. The complete ‘Southern Roots’ is included but where are the ‘London Sessions’? Sure, Bear Family had the complete ‘London Sessions’ on vinyl but they’ve not put them out on CD. Meaning? That this set is NOT the complete studio output as claimed. Also included on the vinyl box sets but not offered here are the live albums ‘Live at the International, Las Vegas’ and ‘Church live recording, Memphis, 1970’. The church recording is, of course, at last available on an individual CD. However, the original ‘International’ album took up just one side of a Bear Family LP with the other side plus another full LP packed with previously unissued performances from those shows.So, for the actual content we don’t have the complete studio recordings and we don’t get everything that was offered on the vinyl issues. Oh, and wouldn’t you have thought that the usual LP-size book would have had enough space to list the questions from the bonus ‘Radio Special interview to promote “Southern Roots”’ so that we could make sense of Jerry’s answers which are all we get as the bonus ... apart from full versions of tracks from the album that already appear elsewhere on the box set!Secondly, there are Jerry’s own performances. Undoubtedly this set includes many tracks that show his superb talent. Sadly, and all too often, he treats his capabilities and his fans’ expectations with utter disdain. Alcohol, drugs, lack of rehearsal and downright ordinary tiredness and boredom shine through all too many tracks that should never have surfaced even as a bad joke. And these were songs that were selected for release on albums. Some, such as ‘Southern Roots’ outtakes, are so awful I don’t see how even the staunchest fans ... and I include myself among them ... can defend such dross.Thirdly, the final area of complaint. The booklet. No problem with the presentation; it looks very nice as do all Bear Family publications. But, do we have to always suffer Colin Escott who is not as knowledgeable as he claims to be. I shan’t waste much time, just offer one example. Of ‘The One Rose’ Mr Escott writes, “...was Jerry’s first attempt at what must have been one of his favourite songs. Written by Hawaiian guitarist Lani McIntyre, it was a hit for Bing Crosby back in 1936. Mawkish and sentimental it might have been, but Jerry liked it and (Jerry) Kennedy clearly had nothing better on offer”.Of course, anyone reading this review knows that Jerry almost worshipped the late, great Jimmie Rodgers. It was he who originally recorded this song in July 1930 but his version wasn’t released until several years later, December 1937, after Bing Crosby’s hit version. To further justify Jimmie’s claim to the song, he was backed on his recording by Lani McIntyre’s Hawaiians ... remember who wrote the song? Quite apart from all that, has Jerry ever claimed to be a Bing Crosby admirer?So, there are some undeniable highlights on this box set. Indeed, it would be impossible to have so much Jerry Lee Lewis in one place without at least some of it being wonderful. Overall, it’s a sad picture of the deliberate destruction of great talent. Do you want to prove how great he was? Just play the first Sun (London-American in Britain) LP ... and don’t forget the times that ‘Live at the Star Club, Hamburg’ is cited as the best live album of all time. Those are things that made this review so hard to write...

received two days later than expected but everything else was fine it was a christmas present. thanks

This wonderfully presented CD box holding 10 CD's with 2 LP's on eachone+lots of extra songs, some of which were never released before,+ a veryinteresting LP sized book that gives you all the details of the about200 songs (even at what time and on which date it was recorded)is, tomy opinion, however, a little overpriced. Out of the 10 CD's there are 2you probably won't listen to anymore after playing them (CD # 5, and disc # 10)That makes it 8 CD's for 180 that's 22,50 per CD!After this introduction, though, I must say that it absolutely is AMUST for Jerry Lee fans and for all genuine country music lovers whoalso like rock & roll (with JL that's obvious), Honky Tonk, Gospel,Blues, even some Dixieland and wonderful ballads. When Jerry's producerJerry Kennedy decided, in the early 70's,to add a 10-piece string bandhe probably knew that he was going to create Jerry Lee's best everrecordings combining rock & roll + country backed up with some kind of arhythm orientated strings beat.That's when such terrific songs are created like Me & Bobby Mc Gee, Chantilly Lace,No Traffic Out of Abilene, Walk A Mile In My Shoes, Games People Play, Don't be Cruel etc.CD # 3 and 4 are just like being in paradise! CD 1 holds a lot of gospel,CD 2 genuine country with a lot of steel & fiddle besides his alwaysgorgious piano, # 7, 8 and 9 have a lot of rock & roll together withoutstanding country hits that hit the top 10 charts. There are absolutehighlights on this box that never were released before except maybe onbootleg LP's but I have no information on that: On disk 1 a wonderfulblues song called Black Mama + Alvin, on disc 3 the mentioned No TrafficOut Of Abilene + the unissued And For The First Time; on discs 7 and 8we have the greatest unissued examples: first of all a completedifferent version of Great Balls Of Fire that means a completenew melody with the same lyrics and on disk 8 the most incredible andnever released Slippin' & Slidin' a 9 minute lasting tribute togenuine "soft" rock & roll with many piano solos that ends up witha piano duel between Jerry and Bobby Wood! At the end all these "new"discoveries of unknown recorded songs by Jerry Lee makes this CD setworthwile at least for his hundreds of thousands fans throughoutthe world who adore the many styles of music of this Living Legend.In total there are some 65 "new" songs out of the 222 on this CDbox. Some were released between 1985 and 1987 on some of Jerry'sLP's but the great majority can be heard for the first time here.