Tales from the Tour Bus - The Vickery Family

Jerry Lee Lewis

Narrator: The Vickerys knew Jerry Lee Lewis since Rodney, the only bachelor of the family, likes to hang out with him. His wife and second cousin Myra was 13 at the time. Rodney said to Jerry Lee that he will have statutory rape. Rodney was the same age as Jerry Lee.

Morris Tarrant: The Killer, he loved to perform.

Narrator: Morris "Tarp" Tarrant spent about 15 years on the road with Jerry Lee, playing drums and occasionally pouring the drinks.

Tarp: From 1961 up to '76, when I caught that armed robbery charge. If that hadn't happened, I'd have still been with him today. I remember a time we was coming from Fort Worth, Texas, going to Oklahoma City. We were 90 miles out and had a flat tire on that Lincoln limousine. We didn't have a jack or a new tire, so he told Cecil, our manager, "Get behind the wheel" and drive this son of a bitch just as fast as it'll go all the way to Oklahoma City." Cecil said, "Killer, I can't do that. It'll burn up the rim. It'll, like, catch the car on fire." Jerry said, "I don't give a goddamn if it blows the whole car up. We got a show to make." This is when we was making $200-$300 a night, you know. "All right, any of you motherfuckers that want to go with me, do this show, "better get your ass in the car, 'cause I'm fixing to take this Lincoln to Oklahoma City." Well, he cranked it up. He said, "Tarp, get over there and pour drinks." I said, "Okay," and he drove that car just as fast as it would go. And sparks was flying. You could smell it smoking. And when we got there, the club owner called the fire department to spray the car down because it was so red hot. And there was no rim there. There was hardly There wasn't no axle there. It was pretty crazy, actually, but he made his show.

Jerry Phillips: He just, uh, knew he was the greatest, man, and he actually could back it up. My dad would even tell you that he was one of the most phenomenal piano players that there ever was.

Narrator: Jerry Phillips' dad, Sam Phillips, signed Elvis Presley at Sun Records. He also signed Jerry Lee when he was just 21.

Jerry: I mean, Elvis was a great entertainer, and I think he, you know, will always be the King, but there's no doubt had he not married his 13-year-old second cousin, he would probably have been the king of rock and roll.

Narrator: There's that. Might as well get to it now.

Myra Williams: I was the 13-year-old child bride who was married to the wild, crazy man, Jerry Lee Lewis. My daddy, J.W. Brown, he played bass with Jerry, and Daddy's Jerry's first cousin.

J.W. Brown: We survived it. That's about the way it was.

Myra: Daddy was probably one of like 60 or 70 first cousins.

Narrator: Three of the cousins actually became pretty big names Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart.

Myra: The three cousins, they set on front porches and played guitars and mandolins and whatever instrument they had.

J.W.B.: He lived down on Black River. There was an old rented house down there his uncle had. Man, you wouldn't believe it. Sometimes snakes would fall out of the ceiling. But somehow, they got a hold of a piano, and that's how he learned to play.

Narrator: They grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, a dirt-poor town along the Mississippi Delta.

Linda Gail Lewis: We were very poor. We didn't even have a bathroom on the inside of the house.

Narrator: Linda Gail Lewis, also a singer and performer, was born 12 years after her brother, Jerry Lee.

Linda Gail: Jerry would sneak off and go down to Haney's Big House and listen to all those great blues players coming down from Memphis, on their way to New Orleans, and they called it the chitlin' circuit. And Jerry was definitely influenced by that.