Truth and Lies

“People think of him as just a jolly fat man from New Orleans, but they don’t realize what a bluesy piano player he is. Here he is with a song that’ll help you get down to the real nitty-gritty.”

“Everybody always thinks of rockabilly as being a guitar-based music, but you can’t imagine that record without Jerry Lee Lewis pumpin’ the piano all over it. During the 60’s and the 70’s the guitar hero became popular, but for my money give me that pumpin’ piano. The only reason the guitar became so popular is because you could wear it around your neck and stand in the middle of the stage. The poor guy playin’ the piano was stuck in one spot and unless you were Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis you were relegated to the background. I feel we lost something when it became all guitars and no piano. Another thing that happened is that somewhere along the line people seemed to think the solo was more important than the song. On some of my favorite blues records there isn’t even a solo at all. The guitar playing is mostly call and response to the vocals. If you’re lucky maybe there’s a one chorus guitar solo. It’s not about the length of the solo, it’s the feel, and a lot of those blues records had more feel than you could ever put in a twenty minute solo.”