Sustained by brief blaze of glory

Jerry Lee Lewis was a Louisiana-born supernova who helped create rock ‘n’ roll and raced toward stardom in the 1950s until his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin Myra helped turn a 1958 performance tour in England into a disaster.

But the brilliance of his early years and his dogged determination to succeed sustained him for decades after his rocketlike career was sidetracked.

Lewis has found the ideal biographer in Alabaman Rick Bragg, an author and former New York Times writer who understands the texture and cadence of Lewis’ life that started in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana near the Mississippi River.

Lewis’ account of his birth in 1935 sums up his outlook: “I came out jumpin’ and I been jumpin’ ever since.”

And he made a discovery that changed his life. “In 1940, when he was not yet five years old, Jerry Lee found his reason for being born,” Bragg writes, noting that he saw a piano at his Aunt Stella’s house.

Lewis had to work hard: playing auditoriums but also performing in lesser venues like an electronics store and a tomato festival.

When Bragg wrapped up his interviews with the aging musician, he walked over to his bed and shook his hand, saying: “I will try to write a good book.”

And he’s done just that.