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On this day, 2 May 1962, American rock’n’roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis, played Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens.
The bill included, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Mark Eden, The Bachelors, Vince Eager, Dave Reid, The Echoes and The Viscounts.
Often known by his nickname the Killer. He has been described as "rock n' roll's first great wild man and one of the most influential pianists of the twentieth century." A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis.
"Crazy Arms" sold 300,000 copies in the South, but it was his 1957 hit "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" that shot Lewis to fame worldwide. He followed this with "Great Balls of Fire", "Breathless" and "High School Confidential". However, his rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old cousin.
Welsh great recalls attending the concert, taken from the South Wales Echo.
HE’S duetted with some of the world’s greatest singing legends from Elvis Presley and Stevie Wonder to Johnny Cash and Tina Turner.
But Sir Tom Jones has revealed his favourite musical performance of all time was one he watched as a paying punter – in the front row of Sophia Gardens Pavilion in Cardiff.
He admitted that it was a homegrown gig by his idol, Jerry Lee Lewis, back in 1962 that stuck in his memory, a year before he’d find the first inklings of fame fronting Tommy Scott And The Senators.
“I’d had tickets to see him at the same venue a few years before but he never made it. It was just after he’d married his cousin and when the public found out about it there was uproar and he got sent out of the country.”
Lewis’ somewhat turbulent personal life was kept under wraps from his fans until that May 1958 British tour where a reporter at Heathrow Airport discovered that his then wife, Myra Gale Brown, was his first cousin once removed and only 13-years-old.
While Lewis, Brown and his management all insisted she was 15, the age difference – the Great Balls Of Fire singer was nearly 23 – meant the tour was scrapped after three concerts.
Tom not only finally got to see Lewis play in the Welsh capital, but once he’d made it big himself in America, he invited the infamous Louisiana rock-and-roller to be a special guest on his 70s Stateside TV show. The pair wowed fans with a blistering rendition of Lewis’ massive 1957 hit Whole Lotta Shakin’.
“I’d been a fan of Jerry Lee’s ever since I heard that song,” said Tom.
“Elvis had come out with Heartbreak Hotel, which was the first major hit, and everybody was going, ‘Wow! He’s a freak of nature, a white guy singing like that.’ So when Whole Lotta Shakin’ came out that was it. I realise it must be a Southern thing – white people growing up with black people, and it was all rubbing off, you know what I mean?”
So when it came to booking stars for his This is Tom Jones variety hour, the Ponty belter knew exactly who should be first on the list.
“In terms of the show, I was getting my way,” he added.
“They wanted Robert Goulet and other people like that – you know, mainstream America. But I was saying, ‘If you want me to do this, then I want Jerry Lee Lewis! I was pleased that it happened, and so was Jerry. He thanked me for getting him back on TV.”
