Great Balls of Fire
Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis is a spirited carried forward rock & roll song, which evolved in 1957 into one of the top-selling million-seller of this genre.
Genesis
Lyricist of the song is Jack Hammer (real name: Earl Solomon Burroughs ), the text of which was modified by the composer Otis Blackwell ( music). Jack Hammer was an African- American author and session pianist from New Orleans, who had the idea for the song. He transferred his rights to Otis Blackwell, because of this as a music director in the theater music film " (Disc Jockey ) Jamboree " acted. This teen -movie was produced in August 1957, presented Jerry Lee Lewis with Great Balls of Fire, after Carl Perkins rejected the song and instead the film Glad All Over sang. In the weak story, after all 21 tracks are presented within a movie length of 86 minutes.
The respected by many Christians as blasphemous song title is a Southern expression for the Holy Spirit, who describes himself as " cloven tongues as of fire" manifest ("like split by tongues of fire "). This - not further substantiated in the text - sacrilege is sometimes overemphasized in the literature about the song.
The recording date of October 8, 1957 was scheduled. The instrumentation of the song consists only of singing, piano (both Jerry Lee Lewis) and percussion ( James Mack Van Eaton ). The common eingepegelte of Sun Records label owner Sam Phillips and Jack Clement intense echo acts on the song as a kind of third instrument and gives the receiver depth and immediacy. It was the so-called " slap back " method ( back-wall echo) of tape delay, which came into use in many Sun Records recordings. The song is to be noted the atmosphere that prevailed during the recording time in the studio. It was namely an up -enhancing dialogue between Phillips and Lewis on Biblical themes, ultimately one of the most infamous recording sessions of rock music escalated at all. The song begins with four spirited glissandi in typical Lewis shape and increases in a hardly be surpassed pace. His piano playing is so instrumental in the foreground, that - contrary to the Sun Records studio usual occupation - only a drum is necessary.
Publication and success
Published on November 3, 1957 as the Sun # 281 with You Win Again B- side of the single was placed parallel to the appearance of the musical movie " Jamboree " on the market. The title came first on 25 November 1957 in the Billboard pop singles chart, where it reached rank two, came to # 3 on the R & B charts before and made the first place in the country charts, a position he held for two weeks. Also in the British pop charts he could reach the number one.
Great Balls of Fire became the second million seller for Jerry Lee Lewis. He was initially sold three million times in a very short time, the world's sales amounted to a total of 5 million copies. It was one of the most successful crossover hits of all time. The film of the same with the life story of Jerry Lee Lewis dated July 1989 provided within the first 17 days since its release already sales of ten million U.S. dollars ( see Great Balls of Fire).
Statistics
The song received a BMI Award and the BMI According gecovert 13 times. For Jackhammer total of 152 titles are registered copyright at BMI, Blackwell there are 394 in the list of 500 best songs he is from the music magazine "Rolling Stone" out on rank 96.