Song:What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me)
Album:Killer Country
Of course Jerry Lee Lewis is one of the all time greats of Rock 'N' Roll. But you may not know that he had a very strong run on the country music charts in the late 60s and the 70s. What Made Milwaukee Famous was a top five country hit in 1968. So when Lewis married his cousin 13 year old Myra Brown in 1958, the scandal killed his career. And by 1963 he left Sun Records for Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury Records. At first Smash tried to recreate Lewis' previous success by having him record his old hits. But with Beatlemania on the rise, that wasn't going to work. Mercury promotions manager Eddie Kilroy suggested that Lewis record a country album. So Lewis went into the studio with veteran Nashville producer Jerry Kennedy and recorded Another Time, Another Place. That single reached #4 on the Country Singles chart. So they decided to record a full album. At the time, Lewis was performing on stage in a rock musical adaptation of Othello in Los Angeles. So he was commuting to Nashville to record the album. What Made Milwaukee Famous was the next single and it reached #2 on the Country Singles chart. That song was written by Glenn Sutton who was Billy Sherrill's partner and those two wrote plenty of Tammy Wynette hits. And Sutton did base the song on the Schlitz Beer slogan. So now Lewis had a whole new audience and for the next ten years he recorded country albums. It was a very successful transformation and you can get all of Lewis' country hits on this budget CD. This all ended when Lewis was arrested outside Graceland for threatening Elvis Presley in 1976 and he left Smash for Elektra in 1979. But the country music of Jerry Lee Lewis is worth checking out. Here's Jerry Lee Lewis performing What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out Of Me) on Hee Haw 1969.
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