Great Balls of Fire (song)
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Great Balls of Fire is a vivacious rock & roll song performed by Jerry Lee Lewis , which in 1957 developed into one of the top-selling millionaire sellers in this genre.
History of origin
The songwriter is Jack Hammer (real name: Earl Salomon Burroughs), whose lyrics have been modified by the composer Otis Blackwell (music). Jack Hammer was an African-American writer and session pianist from New Orleans who came up with the idea for the song. He transferred his rights to Otis Blackwell because this was the music director for the cinema music film (disc jockey) Jamboree . This teen movie was produced from August 1957 and presented Jerry Lee Lewis with Great Balls of Fire after Carl Perkins declined the song and instead sang Glad All Over in the film . In the weak story, 21 titles are presented within a film length of 86 minutes.
The song title, viewed by some Christians as blasphemous , is a southern expression for the Holy Spirit who manifests itself as cloven tongues as of fire ("like tongues split by fire"). This sacrilege - not further specified in the text - is sometimes overemphasized in the literature on the song.
The recording date was October 8, 1957. The instrumentation for the song consists only of vocals, piano (both Jerry Lee Lewis), bass (Sidney Stokes) and drums ( James Mack van Eaton ). The intense echo leveled together by Sun Records label owners Sam Phillips and Jack Clement functions as a kind of third instrument in the song and gives the recording depth and immediacy. It was the so-called "slapback" method (back wall echo) of the tape delay, which was used in many Sun Records recordings. The song shows the atmosphere that prevailed in the recording studio during the recording time. The result was an increasing dialogue between Phillips and Lewis on biblical subjects, which ultimately escalated into one of the most infamous recording sessions in rock music ever. The song begins with four spirited glissandi in the typical Lewis form and increases at a tempo that can hardly be surpassed. His piano playing is instrumental in such a way that - in contrast to the usual studio line-up at Sun Records - only drums and bass are necessary.
Publication and Success
Released on November 3, 1957 as Sun # 281 with the B-side You Win Again , the single was released parallel to the appearance of the music film Jamboree . The title first hit the Billboard pop charts on November 25, 1957 , where it reached number two, rose to number three on the R&B charts, and made it to number one in the country charts, which it held for two weeks . He was also able to reach number one in the British pop charts.
Great Balls of Fire became the second million seller for Jerry Lee Lewis. It was initially sold three million times in a very short time, and worldwide sales totaled five million copies. It was one of the most successful crossover hits of all time. The film of the same name with the life story of Jerry Lee Lewis from July 1989 generated sales of ten million US dollars within the first 17 days of its release (see Great Balls of Fire ).
statistics
The song received a BMI award and, according to the BMI, has been covered 13 times. A total of 152 titles are registered by BMI for Jack Hammer and 394 for Blackwell. In the list of the 500 best songs he is ranked 96th by the music magazine "Rolling Stone".
Cover versions
There are many different cover versions of the title. For example by Electric Light Orchestra (1974), Dolly Parton (1979), Fleetwood Mac (1999), Chris Isaak (2011) and many others. In addition, parts of it were used as samples in other songs , for example by The Beach Boys (1964) and Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers (1989).
Web links
- Mark Kemp: Otis Blackwell, 70; Wrote Hits for Presley and Others. In: New York Times . May 9, 2002, accessed November 13, 2016 (Parts of this text are from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ Nick Toshes: Hellfire - The Jerry Lee Lewis Story. 1982, p. 133.
- ↑ Dave Marsh: The Heart of Rock And Soul. 1989, p. 128.
- ↑ Speaking in tongues with the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal movement (tongues are a symbol for different languages)
- ↑ Colin Escott / Martin Hawkins: Good Rockin 'Tonight - Sun Records And The Birth of Rock And Roll. 1992, p. 198.
- ↑ Rick Kennedy / Randy McNutt: Little Labels - Big Sound. 1999, p. 100.
- ↑ Jim Cogan / William Clark: Temples of Sound - Inside The Great Recording Studios. 2003, p. 91.
- ↑ Craig Morrison: Go Cat Go! Rockabilly Music And Its Makers. 1998, p. 91.
- ^ Joseph Murrells: Million Selling Records. 1985, p. 108.
- ↑ Jerry Lee Lewis Bio. In: Rolling Stone . Retrieved November 13, 2016 .
- ↑ BMI entry for Great Balls of Fire ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Great Balls of Fire on Whosampled.com
