I saw on the news on Friday that one of the last of the archetypal rock’n’rollers, Jerry Lee Lewis, has died. He was there at the beginning of rock’n’roll and was perhaps the most prominent example of why the music was thought of as dangerous.

He always gave the impression he was living the life-style associated with it but his career was marred by scandal when it was revealed that the girl he had married – his cousin Myra Gale Brown – was only 13 at the time. He was 22. The marriage didn’t last. (He married six more women in the years since. I assume he got divorced in between.)

This is a typically energetic performance from a US TV appearance in 1957, the year of that marriage. The song was his second, and biggest, hit in the UK, making no 1.

Jerry Lee Lewis: Great Balls of Fire

Jerry Lee Lewis; 29/9/1935 – 28/10/2022. So it goes.

This is outwith the remit of my usual music categories but there is no doubt that Fats Domino was a major influence on the musicians of later decades and on the development of what came to be called Rock And Roll. Many of the songs he recorded became classics of late twentieth century music.

So much so I can even forgive him the ungrammatical word in this song’s title.

Fats Domino: Ain’t That a Shame

And this was another belter:-

Fats Domino: Blue Monday

Fats Domino: Walking to New Orleans

Antoine “Fats” Domino: 26/2/1928 – 24/10/2017. So it goes.