MERCURY - Jerry Lee Lewis Keeps Rockin'

[Dave McKee]

Keeps Rockin' (1978)

I´ll Find It Where I Can / Blue Suede Shoes / I Hate You / Arkansas Seesaw / Lucille / The Last Cheater´s Waltz / Wild And Wooly Ways / Sweet Little Sixteen / Don´t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes / Pee Wee´s Place / Before The Night Is Over

Like Odd Man In in 1975, this was another attempt to (pretty much equally) combine rock 'n' roll & uptempo songs with slower material, though this album has the edge. Again a very strong track selection, including the modern "outlaw" country I´ll Find It Where I Can, The Last Cheater´s Waltz, Wild And Wooly Ways, Don´t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes, Pee Wee´s Place & the semi-disco(!) Before The Night Is Over. A couple of performances are more pedestrian (in particular Blue Suede Shoes), but overall this was a fine end to Jerry's 15 years at Smash-Mercury. 4 out of 5

Outtakes: The Last Letter / Let's Live A Little / Sittin' & Thinkin' / Corrine Corrina / Life's Railway To Heaven / Ivory Tears / You Call Everybody Darlin' / Lord I've Tried Everything But You / You're All Too Ugly Tonight

With the possible exception of You're All Too Ugly Tonight every one of the unreleased songs from these sessions is superb, & it's a mystery why Mercury didn't release these (along with a few earlier outtakes) as an album after Jerry moved to Elektra in 1979, though perhaps his albums weren't selling so well by this time? As it is they all remained in the can for nearly a decade.

This is from an excellent blog by Peter Checksfield. See the whole blog at http://themargatemusicman.blogspot.com/ ... years.html

[bluesinc.]

Imo this could have been a really good contemorary country album. Put the R&R songs aside and take some of the country outtakes. The released LP isn´t my game at least. The nex one has more for me..

[PeterC]

Imo this could have been a really good contemorary country album. Put the R&R songs aside and take some of the country outtakes. The released LP isn´t my game at least. The nex one has more for me..

I agree. If they'd have used some of those great outtakes instead it would've been one of his best country albums.

I do like those final 3 Mercury albums though (Country Class, Country Memories, Keeps Rockin'), largely a return to form after the mediocre mid 70s albums.

[lucasjenke]

I think they released the wron part of the album. I think the outtakes of that album would be a hell of a hit back then because there were some great songs .
Ivory Tears is one of the best Killer songs ever

Lucas

[PeterC]

There were clearly enough good outtakes from 1976 - 1977 to release as a final Mercury album after this, but for some reason they chose not to.

[PeterC]

ALBUM COVER RATING: 4/5

I'm going through Jerry's albums on here and giving marks out of five for the album covers (regardless of the actual content)...

A pretty decent cover for Jerry's final Mercury album while still signed to the label. Although the music would get stronger at Elektra, the same can't be said about the covers.......