Jumpin' Gene Simmons was the lead singer of the Bill Black Combo in the early...(More)

Jumpin' Gene Simmons was the lead singer of the Bill Black Combo in the early '60s (not to be confused with the schoolteacher-turned-KISS member of the '70s, '80s, and '90s). When Hi Records attempted to get Domingo Samudio (later better known at Sam the Sham) to re-record his "Haunted House" (he recorded it for Dingo Records), Simmons volunteered to do the job. Simmons attributed the success of this to the overexposure of British acts on the radio. Lyrics for: Haunted House I just moved in my new house today Movin was hot but I got squared away Bells started ringin and chains rattled loud I knew I'd moved in a haunted house Still I made up in my mind to stay Nothin was a gonna drive me away When I seen somethin that gave me the creep Had a one big eye and two big feet I stood right still and I did the freeze And he did the stroll right up to me Made a sound with his feet like a drum Sayin you'll be here when the mornin comes Say yes I'll be here when the mornin comes I'll be right here and I ain't gonna run I bought this house now you know I'm boss Ain't no haint gonna run me off In the kitchen my stove was a blazin hot The coffee was a boilin in the pot The grease had melted in my pan I had a hunk of meat in my hand From out of space there sat a man On a hot stove was pots and pans Say that's hot I began to shout He drank a hot coffee from the spout He ate the raw meat right from my hand Drank the hot grease from the fryin pan He said to me now you better run And don't be here when the mornin comes Say yes I'll be here when the mornin comes I'll be right here and I ain't gonna run I bought this house now you know I'm boss... (Fade)"We fought," Huey P. Meaux told Colin Escott, "but we delivered." Meaux was one of those colorful characters who gave southern writers prime source material and who made outsiders wonder if they were being put on. A Cajun named after Louisiana dictator Huey ("Kingfish") Long, Meaux had worked in all aspects of the record business, and in September 1973 he was glad to be in his own loud clothes instead of what he had been wearing most recently: prison garb. Upon his release he had re-established contact with Mercury. Now, after agreeing with Mercury's vice president of artists and repertoire Charlie Fach that a pure Jerry Lee album was the cure to everyone's ills, he was signed to produce such an LP. The resulting set, Southern Roots, was recorded virtually nonstop over three days and nights in Memphis. Meaux enjoyed extraordinary connections, so he was able to assemble a group that was undoubtedly Jerry Lee's most sympathetic accompaniment since his 1964 tour. He recruited guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald ("Duck") Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson, the essential Stax rhythm section, as the core band. Then he added other top-of-the line musicians like organist Augie Meyers of the Sir Douglas Quintet, the original Memphis Horns, members of the Memphis Beats, and Carl Perkins. Mack Vickery contributed harmonica, vocals, and enough craziness to be allowed in the same room with Meaux and Jerry Lee. Recording conditions were chaotic, to put it mildly. Musicians, family members, delivery men, ex-girlfriends, and people just off the street wandered around, pushed engineers out of the way, and slept on the floor. Unlike the London session earlier in the year, where producer Steve Rowland tried to tone down his charges' behavior and instead made everyone more nervous, Meaux encouraged all in his kingdom to whoop it up. The unwieldy Southern Roots sessions were not designed with controlled behavior in mind, but they did yield what was unquestionably the most spirited and sustained studio album of Jerry Lee's long and spirited career. The album was subtitled Back Home to Memphis and featured Jerry Lee's only post-Sun studio performances that consistently captured what made him special, different, and impossible to pigeonhole. A filthy Mack Vickery tune written with Jerry Lee in mind, "Meat Man," kicked off the album and pinned itself in fifth gear. "Meat Man" was two minutes and forty seconds of vivid sexual boasts, delivered furiously and convincingly: "They call me the meat man/You oughta see me eat ma'am." He did not sing as if there were any possibility that the woman might decline his offer. Jerry Lee made listeners believe he had a "Maytag tongue with a sensitive taster." He whooped it up in an avalanche of a solo and his least practiced shouting in years. His mind wasn't in a studio; as far as he was concerned he was in the darkest, toughest roadhouse in Mississippi. "Meat Man" was the most frankly sexual song of Jerry Lee's career, no small achievement. It was the first time in the studio since his glory days at Sun that he sounded truly free. Even when the song ended, he refused to stop, shouting, "Meat man, you mother!" until Meaux shut off the tape. "When a Man Loves a Woman" was originally a hit for Percy Sledge, and Meaux's decision to record it hinted at his agenda more than any other song on Southern Roots. Meaux loved Memphis music, but one of his more brilliant ideas on this session was to act as if Jerry Lee's Memphis homecoming belonged at Stax, not Sun. For a decade the soul masters at Stax (and, later, Hi) had been the groundbreaking performers in town; in the mid- and late-sixties Sun was a clearing house for second-rate talent. Stax and Sun had different sounds, but they were linked because the country-blues fusion at Sun set the stage for Stax to come up with its country-rhythm-and-blues union. So in taking Jerry Lee back to a "Memphis sound," Meaux was both returning to past glories and nudging the Killer forward. "When a Man Loves a Woman" was a colossal ballad with a bite, and Meaux's arrangements kept the focus on Jerry Lee's voice and piano, a logical idea that in 1973 seemed novel. The only thing wrong with "When a Man Loves a Woman" was that it faded out after only four minutes and twenty seconds. "Hold On I'm Coming," a suggestive hit for Sam and Dave, was another tune that originated in the Stax axis, and Jerry Lee recast it as a funky, soulful strut. "I made love to a lotta women in Tennessee," Jerry Lee sang as if he needed to remind himself. "I'm comin, C-o-m-i-n…" An alternate version was slightly faster and much looser. Roscoe Gordon's "Just a Little Bit" got the Sir Douglas Quintet treatment, with Augie Meyers's charmingly trashy organ fighting Jerry Lee for room until piano and organ merged in an otherworldly, bass-heavy keyboard crash. The Killer's singing on this ideal funk-rocker was as ferocious as the song's rhythms. His wild pleading danced across the studio floor until it collapsed in a heap with all the other stragglers. "Born to Be a Loser" was a strong southern ballad with lyrics that Jerry Lee obviously related to: "Ain't nobody perfect," he sang. "Think about it." By the end of the song, he was addressing his potential partner as "you good-looking wench." The second side of Southern Roots erupted to life with "Haunted House," originally a novelty hit for Memphis singer Gene Simmons. (In spite of its relative obscurity, "Haunted House" has garnered quite a celebrity fan club. On Halloween night 1981 Bruce Springsteen began a concert by being carried onstage in a coffin, jumping out, and singing it.) Those listening closely could hear liquor and pills rattling through the vocal. Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" was a straightforward, southern-ballad performance with a touch of Dixieland horns, still on the highest level. The album ended with three songs as weird as the participants in the session; all three featured at least one "think about it." Doug Sahm's "The Revolutionary Man" was a barnstorming rocker, piano and horns once again battling organ. One suspected that good ole boy Jerry Lee's idea of revolution was different from that of confirmed hippie Sahm, but at least Jerry Lee acted like he knew what he was singing about. The backup singers, not even remotely annoying, sang, "Jerry is a rebel," in a melody swiped from Gino Washington's obscure "Gino Is a Coward." Earl ("Kit") Carson's "Big Blue Diamond" offered an unbuttoned solo, and the album slid home with another Mack Vickery song, "That Old Bourbon Street Church." The strong ballad was also thematically useful in that the Vickery numbers that opened and closed the album defined the two Jerry Lees. In "Meat Man" he was a raving, cocksure stud; by "The Old Bourbon Street Church" he was vanquished, drunk, nearly crying, begging for forgiveness. In Vickery, a fan as well as a professional, Jerry Lee had found someone who could articulate his troubles better than he himself ever could. Although they did not surface until the late eighties, another album's worth of first-rank tunes were cut at the Southern Roots sessions. Even better, full session tapes emerged in which fans could hear Jerry Lee, Meaux, and Vickery whoop it up. Everyone at that three-day session was intoxicated by talent as well as by alcohol; unlike the typical Jerry Lee seventies session, in which a truck load of hired guns played their parts and left as soon as the clock said they could, it sounded like the Southern Roots musicians were in Memphis because they loved the music. They were all crazy, but they were also crazy about music. With them cheering him on, Jerry Lee scorched for the last time in a long time. Instead of reviving Jerry Lee's career, Southern Roots condemned it. The album never hit the Billboard chart because its ridiculous cover, a drawing of the Killer that looked positively antebellum, gave the LP all the appearances of yet another reissue of old cuts. All but the most loyal fans did not know that there were any new hits because nothing from Southern Roots got on the radio. In a pea-brained marketing move, Mercury opted for "Meat Man" as the first single. Granted, it was a stupendous song, but part of what made it fantastic was that it was a defiant, upraised middle finger at countrypolitan record formats. Jerry Lee made a sublime album, but nobody got to hear it. He resigned himself to the inevitable. (Less)