In the streaming era, musical artists frequently set new records with regard to Billboard’s main singles chart, the Hot 100 — especially records related to charting large quantities of songs concurrently, sometimes in clumps near the top of the chart. There was a time when a song had to be officially released as a single to crack the Hot 100 at all. Now anything that’s available to stream on an official platform can be included, which means every track on a blockbuster album has a shot at becoming a Hot 100 hit. In other words, the line between the singles chart and the albums chart is blurring.
The latest instance of this phenomenon: Today, per Billboard, Taylor Swift has become the first artist to occupy all 10 spots in the Hot 100 top 10. The achievement occurs simultaneously with the debut of Midnights, Swift’s 10th album, which posted 1.578 million equivalent album units in its first week — the biggest week for any album since Adele’s 25 put up 3.482 million units back in 2015 — to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200. Though 1.140 million of Midnights’ units derive from actual sales, it also posted the third biggest streaming week ever, with 549.26 million on-demand official streams (equating to 419,000 units in the album’s overall total). It only makes sense that Midnights, one of the most-streamed albums ever, would also lay waste to the Hot 100.
Even streaming titan Drake, who famously became the first artist since the Beatles to occupy the top five spots in the chart, has never saturated the whole top 10. (He did get nine out of 10 after the release of Certified Lover Boy last year, so it’s only a matter of time.) Still, we have to credit Swift (and Swift’s fans) for taking this stuff to new extremes.
As for how the Midnights tracks stack up against each other on the chart: “Anti-Hero” becomes Swift’s ninth #1 hit and fifth #1 debut. This ties Swift for second most debuts in the top spot alongside BTS and Ariana Grande, behind seven for Drake. She also becomes the only artist to simultaneously debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 on four separate occasions; Drake is her closest competition with two such instances.
The rest of the top 10: “Lavender Haze” at #2, “Maroon” at #3, “Snow On The Beach” featuring Lana Del Rey at #4 (which surpasses the #6-peaking “Summertime Sadness” to become Del Rey’s highest charting song), “Midnight Rain” at #5, “Bejeweled” at #6, “Question…?” at #7, “You’re On Your Own, Kid” at #8, “Karma” at #9, and “Vigilante Shit” at #10.
Even Hollywood’s biggest A-listers like to get in on the Halloween fun.
From frightening to funny, entertainers of all kinds employed their glam squads (and in some cases, massive budget) to bring their costumes to life. For many of the world’s most beloved celebrities, there was clearly no last-minute Amazon scouring for an outfit.
In 2022, the bar was even higher — and we’ve rounded up some of the best celebrity Halloween costumes that we’ve seen so far.
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian went above and beyond for her Mystique costume this year. The reality TV star’s yellow contacts and blue facial paint brought the Marvel comic book hero to life, all while keeping that classic Kardashian sexiness. (It remains unclear how successfully the star used the washroom in the — albeit impressive — costume.)
Psalm, North, Chicago and Saint West
Kim couldn’t be the only Kardashian in a great costume this year. Even her kids Psalm, North, Chicago and Saint West got in on the fun and dressed up as a gaggle of iconic musicians. Kardashian shared several photos of the kids dressed as Aaliyah, Sade, Snoop Dogg and Eazy E — likely a stark difference from other children their age who commonly dress as princesses and monsters.
Kylie Jenner
Kylie Jenner dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein. Instagram / @kyliejenner
Kylie Jenner has long been praised for her Halloween costumes, but this year, she pulled out all the stops. Dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, Jenner was emotive and beautiful. She turned this classic movie monster into a modern-day beauty, but she didn’t stop there.
Kylie Jenner dressed as Elvira. Instagram / @kyliejenner
In her second Halloween costume this year, Jenner stunned as Elvira. Complete with the signature massive updo and deep V neckline, Jenner was a convincing Mistress of the Dark.
You can’t stop these Kardashians/Jenners! Kendall Jenner dressed as Toy Story‘s Jessie — though Jenner’s doll sported a much cheekier pair of trousers. She flirtatiously captioned her Instagram post, “well aren’t you just the sweetest space toy.”
Khalid
Popular R&B artist Khalid also went as a Toy Story character this year, and even posed in a life-size display box. Of course, he didn’t forget Woody’s signature ‘Andy’ on the bottom of his boot. Yee-haws all around!
Jojo Siwa
Putting her new, short ‘do to good use, Jojo Siwa dressed up as Harry Potter character Draco Malfoy. The former Dance Moms star even posted several videos of herself lip syncing (rather convincingly!) to Malfoy’s lines from the movies.
Janelle Monáe had easily one of the most impressive celebrity Halloween costumes this year. Even for those unfamiliar with movie The Fifth Element, this costume is striking in its quality. Monáe also shared video of herself mimicking Diva Plavalaguna’s operatic performance from the movie.
Diddy
Diddy (a.k.a. Sean Combs) brought the drama this Halloween. While the Joker is by no means an original costume idea, most don’t do it like Diddy. The rapper posted several photos of himself hanging out of a cop car and firing up a flame thrower to Instagram. Shockingly convincing.
1, 2 Step singer Ciara and her five-year-old daughter Sienna looked amazing as Serena and Venus Williams. In a cheeky remake of the tennis stars’ 2000’s “Got Milk?” ad, the mother-daughter pair sported matching beaded braids and milk moustaches. At the bottom of the photo, Ciara paid homage to the Williams’ sisters, writing, “To the best female athletes of all time! Venus and Serena, Love Ci Ci and Si Si.”
Kerry Washington
Kerry Washington said Hello as Lionel Ritchie this Halloween. The actor shed her usual Hollywood glam for a much more vintage look and recreated the cover of Ritchie’s self-titled album. Washington wrote that she was “ready to embarrass my kids All Night Long.” It seems she delivered on that promise, as she shared a lip sync to Ritchie’s You Are.
Lizzo
Lizzo churned out three Halloween costumes this weekend, all with impressive accuracy. First, she dressed as rapper Blueface’s on-again, off-again girlfriend Chrisean Rock. The singer, complete with a missing tooth, recreated Rock’s since-viral “I don’t know who to slap” moment on her Instagram page. Lizzo did, however, switch her fake neck tattoo for a portrait of her own boyfriend, rather than Blueface, who Rock has tattooed.
Next, Lizzo rocked a rather convincing Marge Simpson. Complete with yellow body paint and a skyscraper blue wig, it’s safe to say Lizzo did The Simpsons matriarch justice.
Finally, and easily most niche of all, Lizzo dressed as Woo Wop, the six-year-old TikTok sensation best-known for his emo costuming and “I wanna kill my mom” song that became a meme this year. Lizzo recreated the iconic meme in Woo Wop’s signature chains and pieced black beanie.
Keke Palmer
Keke Palmer gives the people what they want. In a nod to a fan request for the Nope star to play a live action Rapunzel “with 100ft box braids,” Palmer dressed up as the character, complete with a tower. She even uploaded a short sketch to Instagram, where she let her hair down to a boombox-holding gentleman caller.
Palmer also dressed as Marvel superhero Rogue this week, yet another character that fans have requested her to play.
Joe Jonas
Joe Jonas chose to “Go with the Flo” this Halloween. Dressed as the well-known Progressive spokesperson Flo, Jonas proved not every great Halloween costume has to be an expensive, artfully designed outfit.
Frankie Jonas
Every younger sibling loves to poke fun at their older family members, and Frankie Jonas is no exception. This year, he and his girlfriend dressed as the former A-list couple Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift. He even made fun of his older brother’s purity ring, which the Jonas siblings used to wear back in the day.
Kara Kay (left) and Angelina Keeley co-starred on season 37 of Survivor with The White Lotus creator Mike White. Photo: HBO
From playing the game of Survivor, Kara Kay and Angelina Keeley know what it’s like to be blindsided. But their former tribemate and The White Lotus creator Mike White still managed to shock them when he asked if they’d appear in his show’s second season.
For those unfamiliar with the MWCU (Mike White Creative Universe), Kay, Keeley, and White appeared on Survivor: David vs. Goliath in 2018. They started off in the Goliath tribe, and season one of The White Lotus actually featured another teammate in Alec Merlino, who played a bartender at the Hawaiian locale. So how did Kay and Keeley get from an island full of rationed rice and backstabbing to Sicilian paradise? As is the case with many great plans, White told his former colleagues over brunch last November.
“I was a little frazzled; I was running late,” Keeley says. “As I sat down, he goes, ‘I’m putting you two in White Lotus.’ I was like, ‘Oh, that’s funny, let’s get some mimosas and lattes.’ Why would he let us goofballs anywhere near his set? Mike was front row to some of the worst acting moments of my life on Survivor: jacketgate and the fake idol.”
Eventually, White convinced them he was not bluffing and they’d be jetting off to Italy in the coming months.
The season begins with Kay and Keeley chitchatting with Meghann Fahy’s Daphne about their Italian vacation before Daphne takes a dip in the water — and bumps into a corpse. “Pretty early on we knew there was American Woman No. 1 and American Woman No. 2. He kept saying ‘opening scene’; I was like, Maybe we’re in the background, waving, drinking some cocktails,” Kay says. “Then we got a draft of the script and realized, oh we have lines, we’re going to say something. We’re going to be acting.”
Though both had some nerves making their non-reality TV debut, they were welcomed with open arms on set. Fahy invited them to run lines on her hotel balcony the night before they filmed, and Kay and Keeley picked out several outfits for the costume department to approve, which was key in making them feel comfortable (especially for Keeley, who was four months pregnant at the time). The only expectation was that they look like “wealthy tourists traveling” — they pulled their picks online by sorting from high to low and Googling “where do the one percent get their swimwear?”
And in “true Angelina form,” Keeley got some negotiating in. Wardrobe originally wanted to put her in a huge hat, which she was unsure about; when White swung by to check on the two before cameras rolled, she expressed her doubts about the headwear, and The White Lotus honcho agreed she should kill the look.
Though the two don’t have any speaking lines once the body is discovered, they still had to tap into their acting chops. Kay took an understated, shocked approach to the moment, but Keeley’s performance was … something else. “I was wiping a fake tear away like I was at a funeral. Mike came up like, ‘Angelina, this is why you’re perfect for reality TV. You’re so over the top,” she says, laughing. “Less grief, more shock.”
At the premiere for the new season, White noted there’s “some Survivor weaved into the show” thematically. Kay thinks the social-game aspect plays into the interpersonal relationships at the Sicilian resort: “A lot of it is how people deal with others and how we’re all human at the root of it.” And in Keeley’s eyes, the through line comes through victory. “Survivor is about winning by being cunning and strong,” she says. “In White Lotus one, winning is about money and socioeconomic levels. With White Lotus two, it’s about sexual politics and power.”
The Goliath duo sees the ongoing trend of Survivors appearing in The White Lotus as Easter eggs, a bridge between White’s various creative wells. It’s clear deep friendships were formed back on the beaches of Fiji; when White traveled to Hawaii this past September, Kay and Merlino came along (as did White’s adorable pooch, Peanut). To help celebrate the first season’s ten Emmy wins, she baked him a heart-shaped banoffee pie adorned with lit candles.
But when asked which alum they’d like to see join a potential White Lotus season three, the two revert back to that specific Survivor coyness.
“Oh my God, it’s like Survivor all over again. I plead the fifth,” Kay says. “That’s up to Mike. I’ll leave it to his creative genius,” Keeley adds.
The game never ends.
When castaway Natalie Cole was voted out, Keeley repeatedly asked if she could have her jacket after feigning shock at the vote. The moment has become a fan favorite in Survivor lore.
The 46th Annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival has been named Event of the Year, Industry Profession of the Year went to Mary Beth Waldram.
Rozalind MacPhail is Music Educator of the Year, Atlantic Music has been named Outstanding Company and Recording Engineer/Producer of the Year honours went to Michelle LaCour.
The Ship Pub has been named Venue of the year, while Volunteer of the Year recognition has been given to Alick Tsui.
Three honourary awards were also handed out: they include John Clarke who received the Unsung Hero Award, Darren White who was handed the Denis Parker Industry Builder Award and Don and Kathy Where of Sound Symposium fame received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
MusicNL Celebration week wraps up tonight with their Artist Awards Gala.
Jerry Lee Lewis, the untamable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy and ego collided on such definitive records as Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On and sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, died Friday morning at 87.
The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at home in Memphis, Tennessee, representative Zach Farnum said in a release.
Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre’s attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself “The Killer.”
Tender ballads were best left to the old folks. Lewis was all about lust and gratification, with his leering tenor and demanding asides, violent tempos and brash glissandi, cocky sneer and crazy blond hair. He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On on The Steve Allen Show, chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.
“There was rockabilly. There was Elvis. But there was no pure rock ’n ’roll before Jerry Lee Lewis kicked in the door,” a Lewis admirer once observed. That admirer was Jerry Lee Lewis.
But in his private life, he raged in ways that might have ended his career today — and nearly did back then.
For a brief time, in 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife. His tour was cancelled, he was blacklisted from the radio and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing.
“I probably would have rearranged my life a little bit different, but I never did hide anything from people,” Lewis told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 when asked about the marriage. “I just went on with my life as usual.”
Over the following decades, Lewis struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, legal disputes and physical illness. Two of his many marriages ended in his wife’s early death. Brown herself divorced him in the early 1970s and would later allege physical and mental cruelty that nearly drove her to suicide.
“If I was still married to Jerry, I’d probably be dead by now,” she told People magazine in 1989.
Lewis reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s, and the music industry eventually forgave him, long after he stopped having hits. He won three Grammys, and recorded with some of the industry’s greatest stars. In 2006, Lewis came out with Last Man Standing, featuring Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, B.B. King and George Jones. In 2010, Lewis brought in Jagger, Keith Richards, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw and others for the album Mean Old Man.
In “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll,” first published in 1975, he recalled how he convinced disc jockeys to give him a second chance.
“This time I said, ‘Look, man, let’s get together and draw a line on this stuff — a peace treaty you know,’” he explained. Lewis would still play the old hits on stage, but on the radio he would sing country.
Lewis had a run of top 10 country hits between 1967-70, and hardly mellowed at all. He performed drinking songs such as What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me), the roving eye confessions of She Still Comes Around and a dry-eyed cover of a classic ballad of abandonment, She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye. He had remained popular in Europe and a 1964 album, Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, is widely regarded as one of the greatest concert records.
Lewis married seven times, and was rarely far from trouble or death. His fourth wife, Jaren Elizabeth Gunn Pate, drowned in a swimming pool in 1982 while suing for divorce. His fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, 23 years his junior, died of an apparent drug overdose in 1983. Within a year, Lewis had married Kerrie McCarver, then 21. She filed for divorce in 1986, accusing him of physical abuse and infidelity. He countersued, but both petitions eventually were dropped. They finally divorced in 2005 after several years of separation. The couple had one child, Jerry Lee III.
Another son by a previous marriage, Steve Allen Lewis, 3, drowned in a swimming pool in 1962, and son Jerry Lee Jr. died in a traffic accident at 19 in 1973. Lewis also had two daughters, Phoebe and Lori Leigh, and his survived by his wife Judith.
His finances were also chaotic. Lewis made millions, but he liked his money in cash and ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Internal Revenue Service. When he began welcoming tourists in 1994 to his longtime residence near Nesbit, Mississippi — complete with a piano-shaped swimming pool — he set up a 900 phone number fans could call for a recorded message at $2.75 a minute.
The son of one-time bootlegger Elmo Lewis and the cousin of TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and country star Mickey Gilley, Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. As a boy, he first learned to play guitar, but found the instrument too confining and longed for an instrument that the only the rich people in his town could afford — a piano. His life changed when his father pulled up in his truck one day and presented him a dark-wood, upright set of keyboards.
“My eyes almost fell out of my head,” Lewis recalled in Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, written by Rick Bragg and published in 2014.
He took to the piano immediately, and began sneaking off to Black juke joints and absorbing everything from gospel to boogie-woogie. Conflicted early on between secular and scared music, he quit school at 16, with plans of becoming a piano-playing preacher. Lewis briefly attended Southwestern Assemblies of God University in Waxahachie, Texas, a fundamentalist Bible college, but was expelled, reportedly, for playing the “wrong” kind of music.
Great Balls of Fire, a sexualized take on Biblical imagery that Lewis initially refused to record, and Whole Lotta Shakin’ were his most enduring songs and performance pieces. Lewis had only a handful of other pop hits, including High School Confidential and Breathless, but they were enough to ensure his place as a rock ‘n’ roll architect.
“No group, be it (the) Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on Whole Lotta Shakin’ for my money,” John Lennon would tell Rolling Stone in 1970.
A roadhouse veteran by his early 20s, Lewis took off for Memphis in 1956 and showed up at the studios of Sun Records, the musical home of Elvis, Perkins and Cash. Told by company founder Sam Phillips to go learn some rock ‘n roll, Lewis returned and soon hurried off Whole Lotta Shakin’ in a single take.
“I knew it was a hit when I cut it,” he later said. “Sam Phillips thought it was gonna be too risque, it couldn’t make it. If that’s risque, well, I’m sorry.”
In 1986, along with Elvis, Chuck Berry and others, he made the inaugural class of inductees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Killer not only outlasted his contemporaries but saw his life and music periodically reintroduced to younger fans, including the the 1989 biopic Great Balls of Fire, starring Dennis Quaid, and Ethan Coen’s 2022 documentary Trouble in Mind. A 2010 Broadway music, Million Dollar Quartet, was inspired by a recording session that featured Lewis, Elvis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.
He won a Grammy in 1987 as part of an interview album that was cited for best spoken word recording, and he received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2005. The following year, Whole Lotta Shakin’ was selected for the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry, whose board praised the “propulsive boogie piano that was perfectly complemented by the drive of J.M. Van Eaton’s energetic drumming. The listeners to the recording, like Lewis himself, had a hard time remaining seated during the performance.”
A classmate at Bible school, Pearry Green, remembered meeting Lewis years later and asking if he was still playing the devil’s music.
“Yes, I am,” Lewis answered. “But you know it’s strange, the same music that they kicked me out of school for is the same kind of music they play in their churches today. The difference is, I know I am playing for the devil and they don’t.”
Jerry Lee Lewis, the hard-living, hard-playing pianist and singer whose offstage exploits often grabbed as much attention as his electrifying performances and genre-spanning recording career, has died. He was 87.
The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Lewis died at home in Memphis, Tenn., representative Zach Farnum said in a release.
Lewis had suffered a minor stroke in 2019 but frequently performed live shows until then. More recently, he was unable to attend his Country Music Hall of Fame induction due to illness.
Lewis's legacy was largely established on the mostly raucous sides cut over a three-year period at Sun Records in Memphis: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On, Great Balls of Fire, Breathless and High School Confidential.
A serendipitous session there of future music legends on Dec. 4, 1956 would also loom large — with the songs recorded by the so-called Million Dollar Quartet of Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins sold and repackaged in the ensuing decades.
Lewis's appeal to baby boomer kids entranced by the new genre called rock 'n' roll was boosted by manic performances on The Steve Allen Show and in the motion picture High School Confidential. Lewis's hair flipped and flopped as he pounded the keys, yipped and yodelled, kicked the piano bench aside and played standing up or even with his feet.
Jerry Lee Lewis performs at the 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 30, 2009. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)
"The Killer" — Lewis's nickname stemming from a colloquial childhood greeting — was inducted into the inaugural 1986 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
Not a prolific songwriter, Lewis received credit for putting his definitive stamp on songs that originated across genres -- R&B, country, gospel, he loved it all.
Scandalous marriage
Lewis's life played out like a Southern Gothic novel manuscript rejected for being too over the top.
There were seven marriages, a near-fatal shooting, perennial IRS troubles due to tax delinquency and habitual car crashes, including an infamous 1976 arrest in which a pistol-packing Lewis crashed his Lincoln into the gates of old friend Presley's Graceland mansion.
"I am just what I am — Jerry Lee 'F--k Up' Lewis," he told the BBC in a 1990 documentary. "If you don't like that, you can kiss my ass."
Lewis plays the piano with his feet in Bourges, France, on April 23, 1987. (Frank Perry/AFP/Getty Images)
While Lewis enjoyed a recording career that spanned more than six decades, radio airplay largely stopped when it was learned in 1958 that he had married the 13-year-old daughter of his bandmate and cousin, J.W. Brown, on Dec. 12, 1957.
Myra Gale Brown's account of their tumultuous 13-year marriage was told in 1982's Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis, the inspiration for a major motion picture seven years later starring Dennis Quaid as Lewis and Winona Ryder as Brown.
Mysterious death
The couple's three-year-old son, Steve Allen Lewis, drowned in 1963, while a decade later Jerry Lee Lewis, Jr., the oldest of six Lewis children, was killed in a vehicle accident at the age of 19.
Journalist Richard Ben Cramer, in one of the most famous Rolling Stone longform pieces, questioned in 1984 if Lewis had embodied his nickname to deadly consequence after his fifth wife, Shawn Stephens, died the previous year at his Nesbit, Miss., ranch at the age of 26 years, and just 77 days into their marriage.
R.I.P. JLL the KILLER-What a man🙏⚡️☀️ XX🎶🎶🎶☀️❤️<a href="https://twitter.com/jerryleelewis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jerryleelewis</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/jerryleelewis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#jerryleelewis</a> <a href="https://t.co/GrF9f5RC0E">pic.twitter.com/GrF9f5RC0E</a>
When first responders arrived, Cramer reported, Lewis greeted them with slurred speech, a bathrobe stained with dried blood and scratches on his hand. Stephens's death was ruled a methadone overdose, and a grand jury refused to indict Lewis, but the investigation was deemed substandard by both Cramer and Geraldo Rivera of TV news magazine program 20/20.
"I loved her with all my heart and soul. There's no way that Jerry Lee Lewis could ever, and would ever, even think of taking another person's life," Lewis said on 20/20, explaining that the blood and scratches were from punching a wall in anguish over her death.
Hardscrabble rural upbringing
Jerry Lee Lewis was born at the height of the Great Depression in Ferriday, La., on Sept. 29, 1935, one of four children. When not travelling, he spent nearly his entire life in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.
Lewis's father picked cotton and did a short stint in jail for selling liquor illegally. The family dwelling had no electricity or indoor plumbing, and when Lewis was a small child, his older brother was killed by a drunk driver.
Respite from the hard life came largely from extended family gatherings where music was performed.
"There's a lot of piano players in my family and a lot of singers. You're either a preacher or a rock and roll singer," Lewis told CBC's Good Rockin' Tonite in 1989. "I chose rock and roll."
Chuck Berry, left, and Lewis embrace at a reception at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York on Jan. 23, 1986, when they were both inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. (G. Paul Burnett/The Associated Press)
Despite the challenging circumstances, four members of his extended family achieved some degree of fame. Linda Gail Lewis, his sister, and cousin Mickey Gilley were also recording artists, and another cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, became one of the most famous American televangelists.
Pentecostal church services Lewis attended as a child made a lifelong imprint. Throughout his life and all the hellraising that would ensue, he was preoccupied with whether "salvation" would occur at his mortal life's end.
At the age of eight, he displayed an aptitude for music, inspiring his dad, Elmo, and mother, Mamie, to spend more than they had to buy him a standup Starck piano. He was largely self-taught, but a wide range of artists fuelled his passion, with Hank Williams and B.B. King his favourites.
'That boy can go'
Lewis played community events beginning in his teens and snuck into clubs, with neither academia nor a stint in Bible school holding lasting interest. His wide-legged style at the piano bench was reportedly due to a hip injury playing football.
He heard about the exploits of Presley at Sun Records and made a pilgrimage in the waning months of 1956. By that time he had been through a series of menial jobs and nighttime gigs, as well as receiving a rejection from RCA Records, whose staff were reportedly flummoxed that he didn't play the guitar.
Lifetime achievement award winner Lewis poses for photographers at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 13, 2005. (Reed Saxon/The Associated Press)
"Nothing could stop me. I was going to be heard and get recorded," he told Vintage Rock magazine. "I knew, if I got to Sun, it would happen."
A reporter was on hand for the studio session of future legends Cash, Perkins, Presley and Lewis.
"That boy can go," Presley told the scribe. "I think he has a great future ahead of him. He has a different style, and the way he plays piano just gets inside me."
In less than two years, Great Balls of Fire, Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On and Breathless were all top-10 hits on Billboard's main chart.
Aged 22 and on his third marriage, Lewis's union with a 13-year-old was, regrettably, not without precedent in rural communities of the Deep South at the time. His own sisters were married at 14 and 12, while he was 16 when he married for the first time.
Lewis and his wife, Myra, then 15, are shown in London on May 23, 1958. The marriage caused controversy, and she later alleged it had been marked by abuse. (Getty Images)
At a 1959 court appearance regarding tardy child support payments to his second wife, Lewis explained to a judge that gigs had dried up due to being branded a "cradle snatcher."
He played the club and tavern circuit for much of the 1960s, including Café Pagoda in Montreal and Toronto's Le Coq d'or Tavern, appearing on a bill with younger musicians like John Lennon and Eric Clapton at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in 1969.
During the 1970s, he found the charts again as a country performer, with songs such as What's Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out of Me) and To Make Love Sweeter for You.
Lewis being Lewis, trouble was never far off. With drinks flowing in 1976, he nearly killed his bass player, Butch Owens, with a .357 — he said he was aiming the gun at a Coke bottle. Lewis was forced to pay damages to Owens and sentenced to probation.
Jerry Lee Lewis has passed … REST EASY KILLER you were one of a kind… <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RIPJerryLee?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#RIPJerryLee</a> <a href="https://t.co/n5ZDI1VhIh">pic.twitter.com/n5ZDI1VhIh</a>
"I just know it took him a couple days to talk right," Lewis told biographer Rick Bragg decades later.
After Presley's 1977 death, it was learned at a subsequent trial that both he and Lewis were avid customers of pill-pushing Dr. George Nichopoulos. Dr. Nick, as he became known, testified that amphetamines were Lewis's particular weakness and that Lewis once discharged himself from a hospital by climbing out a window.
Around the same time — and not for the last time — Lewis was forced to hawk a number of luxury items to satisfy tax debts owed to Uncle Sam.
In 1981, the wear-and-tear of alcohol and drug use led to stomach surgery and a subsequent bout of pneumonia, leaving him in serious condition for a time.
It was at a show the following year at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn, Mich., where he met Stephens, a waitress.
Richard Ben Cramer's 1984 Rolling Stone article, The Strange and Mysterious Death of Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis, was lurid. The writer pointed out that Lewis's fourth wife, Jaren, drowned in 1982, though the article didn't mention that the performer was nowhere near the scene of that tragedy.
Both Cramer and Geraldo Rivera alleged there had been abuse in the short marriage to Stephens.
"She wasn't beaten at all. There wasn't a touch of circumstantial evidence that I done it," Lewis told Bragg in 2014's Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story.
'Jerry Lee won't be tamed'
Lewis's reputation took a hit, and a series of erratic performances didn't help. He was a no-show at an oldies revue in Toronto's brand new SkyDome in 1989, and four years later, he kicked a cameraman in Spain.
In her book, Myra Gale Brown said Lewis would subject her "to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable" during their marriage, and neither were fans of 1989's Great Balls of Fire.
"I played him really as a nine-year-old boy who fell in love with music, which he still is," Quaid told Vogue in a promotional interview for the film.
In the last three decades of his life, Lewis still enjoyed the rush of the stage, no matter if it was a club that had seen better days or a casino amphitheatre.
After a decade break from recording, 2006's Last Man Standing ushered in three well-received albums in the 21st century chock-full of guest spots from the likes of B.B. King, Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Sheryl Crow and Willie Nelson.
As Hutch Hutchinson, a bandmate for more than four decades at the time, told the New York Times in 2006: "Jerry Lee won't be tamed. He doesn't answer to anybody, never has."
Vancouver has joined the ranks of international culinary destinations after the Michelin Guide awarded eight local restaurants with a coveted star.
Invited guests made up of food lovers, chefs and restaurateurs gathered at the Vancouver Convention Centre West building for the inaugural ceremonial reveal Thursday night.
The famed but sometimes controversial dining guide revealed the names of eight establishments deemed worthy of one star out of a possible three.
iDen & Quan Ju De Beijing Duck House is one of eight Vancouver restaurants awarded a Michelin star. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Twelve other restaurants earned a Bib Gourmand designation, which recognizes great quality among outlets that offer two courses and a glass of wine or dessert for less than $60. The locations ranged from beloved Chinatown Cambodian restaurant Phnom Penh to celebrity chef Vikram Vij's namesake Indian restaurant, Vij's.
"Our teams of inspectors genuinely savoured their dining experiences in Vancouver," said Gwendal Poullennec, international director of the Michelin Guides.
Anonymous inspectors fly into cities to visit restaurants over the span of several weeks to determine their list of recommendations.
Poullennec says in Vancouver, inspectors were impressed by the city's diverse offerings, and all its recommended restaurants were appealing "in their own authentic DNA."
In the past, Michelin has been criticized for focusing on fine dining experiences and cuisines like French, Italian and Japanese over others.
Here is a complete list of Vancouver Michelin Guide selections:
One-star
AnnaLena.
Barbara.
Burdock & Co.
iDen & QuanJuDe Beijing Duck House.
Kissa Tanto.
Masayoshi.
Published on Main.
St. Lawrence.
Bib Gourmands
Anh and Chi.
Chupito.
Fable Kitchen.
Fiorino, Italian Street Food.
Kin Kao Song.
Little Bird Dim Sum + Craft Beer.
Lunch Lady.
Nightshade.
Oca Pastificio.
Phnom Penh.
Say Mercy!.
Vij's.
Recommended
¿CóMO? Taperia.
Acquafarina.
Arike.
Ask for Luigi.
Bacaro.
Bacchus.
Bar Gobo.
Bar Susu.
Bonjour Vietnam Bistro.
Botanist.
Café Medina.
Carlino.
Chang'An.
Chef's Choice Chinese Cuisine.
Cioppino's.
Delara.
Dynasty Seafood.
Elephant.
Fanny Bay Oyster Bar.
Hawksworth Restaurant.
Homer St. Cafe.
L'Abattoir.
Lobby Lounge & RawBar.
Maenam.
Miku.
Nammos Estiatorio.
Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant.
New Mandarin Seafood Restaurant.
Nightingale.
Ophelía.
Osteria Savio Volpe.
per se Social Corner.
PiDGiN.
Riley's Fish & Steak.
Sushi Bar Maumi.
The Acorn.
The Mackenzie Room.
Torafuku.
Ubuntu Canteen.
Yuwa.
The guidebooks, which were first published in France more than a century ago, award stars annually to restaurants that exhibit culinary excellence.
Michelin's arrival in Canada is thanks in part to a multi-year funding deal with tourism boards to help promote travel decimated by the pandemic, but Gwendal Poullennec, the guide's international director, said the selection process remains independent.
Michelin inspectors base their reviews on five criteria: quality products, harmony of flavours, mastery of cooking techniques, the personality of the chef in the cuisine, and consistency across each visit — as each restaurant is inspected several times a year.
Let’s get this out of the way: Kevin Nealon is absolutely hilarious. From SNL to Conan O’Brien appearances to Weeds (and more), the guy always delivers. If I have a few beers, I will definitely shout at you why he’s the best Weekend Update Anchor.
It turns out, he’s also an incredible artist. His new book features caricatures of his famous friends and personal essays about them. (I’m most curious about Chris Farley.) That’s why we made him the judge in our drawing contest where we drew… Kevin Nealon.
So enjoy the video (CLICK HERE TO WATCH), congratulate the winner of this competition, and check out Kevin’s book!
Kevin Nealon’s new book I Exaggerate: My Brushes with Fame is available now wherever books are sold. Or click HERE.
LOS ANGELES—In what was poised to serve as a fresh blow at violent male predators, prosecutors on Monday argued that convicted rapist Harvey Weinsteinsexually assaulted several women and used his power to ensure their silence.
But the legal team of the disgraced Hollywood titan did not hold back in their own attack—insisting during their opening statements in the latest criminal trial against Weinstein that his accusers were merely “playing the damsel in distress.”
Defense attorney Mark Werksman wasted no time insisting to the jury that the women set to testify against Weinstein were liars, insisting that two of them had made up encounters and the other two had “transactional sex” with him.
Weinstein, 70, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges against him, including rape and sexual assault, after allegedly using his power in the entertainment industry to lure and abuse five women in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 140 years in prison.
Prosecutors said Monday that former actress Jennifer Siebel Newsom was one of five Jane Does whose allegations factor into the criminal case and that she was expected to testify against Weinstein after he allegedly raped her in 2oo4 or 2005.
Werksman argued Monday that Weinstein’s relationship with Siebel Newson was consensual, before stating that if she wasn’t married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, “she’d be just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”
The brutal opening statements came hours after the formidable producer was wheeled into the Los Angeles Superior courtroom on Monday, where he thanked the court deputy who helped him to the defense table before prosecutors launched their opening statements. Weinstein, who was wearing a navy suit and glasses, occasionally looked at Gloria Allred, a lawyer representing several of his accusers, who was sitting in the gallery.
Thompson read out loud several harrowing quotes from Weinstein accusers who were set to testify against him. They described Weinstein groping, undressing, and raping them despite their pleas for him to stop. All of the women, prosecutors said, were terrified to speak out being of Weinstein’s inescapable presence in the entertainment industry.
“You’re going to hear from eight different women who were assaulted by Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles,” Thompson said, though he did not mention Jane Doe 5 or her allegations against Weinstein, despite prosecutors including allegations from five women in the criminal case. “Each of these women came forward independent of each other, and none of them knew one another.”
Thompson added that while all of the women told friends and family about the alleged assaults, they did not publicly accuse Weinstein of any wrongdoing until after the MeToo movement exploded in 2017. Prosecutors say that it was not until this critical period—which exposed the most powerful men in Hollywood—that the women felt comfortable exposing the man once referred to as “the king.”
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
“They feared that he could crush their careers if they reported what he had done to him,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson said during opening statements on Monday morning.
Detailing each women’s accusations, prosecutors noted that Siebel Newsom, who first detailed her allegations in a 2017 HuffPost essay, believed she was meeting Weinstein in his hotel suite for a business meeting to “discuss her career.”
Prosecutors say Weinstein referred that day to “a list of A-List actresses whose careers he supposedly made, and his voice moved from pleading to aggressive and demanding” before he forced her onto the bed and forcibly raped her.
“She couldn’t get any words out because of her fear,” Thompson said about the alleged attack, adding that Weinstein told her to “relax [because] this is going to make her feel better.”
Elizabeth Fegan—who represents multiple accusers in the case, including Siebel Newsom—said in a Monday statement that “convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein and his enablers are once again resorting to their despicable, desperate, dishonest attack-the-victim playbook.”
“The defense is callously engaging in misogynistic name-calling and victim-shaming—but survivors will not be deterred—and Weinstein should be found guilty once again,” Fegan added.
Lauren Young, who testified in the New York trial that convicted Weinstein of rape and sexual assault, has also been identified as one of the Jane Does who will take the stand in the new case. She previously testified that in February 2013, when she was 23 years old, Weinstein trapped her in a Beverly Hills hotel room before he groped her and masturbated on the floor.
“I stood there in shock... and I went to the door. By that point he was already undressed and he stepped in front of me with his naked body…I felt so trapped,” Young testified in 2020, serving as a witness to a pattern of behavior in the New York case.
The three other Jane Does whose allegations are part of the trial have not yet been identified, but they include an Italian model who alleges Weinstein attacked her in a hotel room after a 2013 film festival.
The woman, identified as Jane Doe 1 on the stand, broke down on the stand as she described how Weinstein sexually assaulted her after the two briefly met at the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival. She said that night, she was shocked when Weinstein showed up in the hotel room and loudly demanded to come inside.
She alleged that Weinstein then turned aggressive, before ultimately demanding she perform oral sex on him despite her pleas to stop.
“I was panicking,” she said while fighting back tears. “He became a different person.”
As the jury left the courtroom on Monday, Jane Doe 1 held her head in her hands. She is expected to continue her testimony on Tuesday.
Another accuser, identified as Ashley M., alleges that Weinstein attacked her after a 2004 movie premier in Puerto Rico.
“Harvey Weinstein’s LA trial started today. It is much worse than what he faced in NYC. May he rot in jail til the end of his days,” actress Ellen Barkin, who has publicly accused Weinstein of verbal assault and attended his New York trial, tweeted on Monday. Barkin also notably testified against Johnny Depp in his civil defamation civil trial against Amber Heard, where both actors detailed harrowing allegations of abuse.
In addition to the five women at the crux of the charges against Weinstein, prosecutors are expected to call at least 50 witnesses to the stand. Some of them will be women who have accused Weinstein of assault but whose allegations are not a part of the criminal case. Prosecutors will call these “prior bad acts” witnesses to establish Weinstein’s pattern of predatory behavior, a tactic that has helped convict predators across the country in recent years.
The corroborating witnesses include Ambra Battilana Guiterrez, who alleges Weinstein assaulted her in 2015. Unlike the other women in the case, however, Gutierrez cooperated in an NYPD sting operation that ultimately led to Weinstein’s arrest—though no charges were ultimately filed at the time.
The jury on Monday heard the lengthy audio recording from the sting operation, in which Weinstein is heard promising to help Gutierrez’s career. Gutierrez alleges that as he was making these professional promises, he was allegedly groping her.
“Don’t embarrass me in the hotel. I’m here all the time,” Weinstein is heard in the recording. “Five minutes. Don’t ruin your friendship with me for five minutes.”
At another point in the recording, Weinstein appears to threaten her, adding: “If you don’t trust me, then we have no reason to do anything, and you will lose big opportunities.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Norwegian model Natassia Malthe is also among the corroborating witnesses set to testify that Weinstein raped her in 2008 during the British Academy of Film and Television Awards. Prosecutors said Monday that Natassia’s friend, director David Nutter, will also testify.
Weinstein’s legal team has yet to disclose who they plan to call to the stand to refute these allegations. But one of his lawyers previously told The Daily Beast, “We’re confident once the jury hears the details of these allegations, they’ll see that they didn’t happen or that they’re fabricated, or that they didn’t happen the way they say they did.”
The defense was set to begin their opening statements on Monday afternoon.
The latest trial against Weinstein in Los Angeles once seemed ceremonial, after the disgraced mogul’s conviction in New York just months before the pandemic lockdown. But the New York State Court of Appeals in August agreed to allow him to appeal his conviction—which carries a 23-year sentence—next year.
“We will definitely be watching the L.A. case closely,” Donna Rotunno, the lead attorney in Weinstein’s New York trial, told The Daily Beast on Monday.
Rotunno, a self-described feminist who has disparaged the MeToo movement, specifically highlighted the testimony expected from Young, the accuser who appeared in the New York case. Essentially, she suggested, Weinstein attorneys would be keeping tabs in hopes of identifying some kind of inconsistency.
“It could open a can of worms from an appellant standpoint,” she said.
So ends another season of Game Of Thrones—er, House Of The Dragon.
While HBO closed the book Thrones with a handful of controversial and divisive episodes, House Of The Dragon resumed viewers to business as usual. With its flute playing joyful tunes of incest and dismemberment, HBO’s proverbial Pied Piper, House Of The Dragon, shepherded 9.3 million people to their TV screens to watch several children die.
Per Variety, the number pleased HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery enough to release it, even though it paled in comparison to the Game Of Thrones finale in 2019. That episode, which, as we all remember, introduced the world to Bran the Broken, clocked in more than 18 million viewers. In fact, “The Black Queen” wasn’t even a season-best for House Of The Dragon. This season’s second episode had more than 10 million viewers.
So what does this tell us? Well, for one thing, at least a million fewer people watched last night than back in August. Does that mean House Of The Dragon is doomed? Probably. Who knows how many viewers HBO could lose next season to people being busy?
But in the meantime, it’s looking fine. HBO even told Variety that there were episode-to-episode gains. Across TV and streaming, viewership “rose by 5% with Episode 4, by 3% with Episode 5 and by another 3% with Episode 6.” However, Variety notes, “The company declined to share any information about viewership of episodes 7–9.” Could it be that people had enough of Daemon Targaryen’s fickle moral compass, Viserys’ decay, or the show’s penchant for sibling marriage? Maybe they were annoyed that there was yet another one of those episodes you can’t see. But, most likely, there were just some scheduling conflicts between HBO and the people who consume their content. One day, networks will be able to control us better, and we patiently await that day.
House Of The Dragon’s finale was bigger than the Thrones season one finale. Unfortunately, HBO’s first season capper garnered a pathetic 3.9 million, meaning Game Of Thrones is probably doomed. Still, they could probably save that show if they added a few more feet scenes.
