Jerry Lee Lewis “Rare Tracks” 1989. Sun Records. Nick Tosches “Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story” 1982. Author/music journalist Nick Tosches died yesterday, October 20th, just shy of his 70th birthday (b. October 23rd, 1949). I’ve been a Tosches fan for quite awhile – we have a few of his books including this bio of Jerry Lee Lewis, his 1977 underground country music book Country: The Biggest Music in America and his 1984 Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Tosches style was dramatic and riveting – an example from the second paragraph of Hellfire: “’Hell,’ Jerry Lee Lewis would tell you in the middle of the night, which he seemed to have the power to evoke, to drape about himself, at any hour; ‘Hell,’ he would tell you, looking squint at the veins in his wrists, receding into the memory of his father’s tales and the tales of his father’s brothers; ‘Hell,’ he would tell you, ‘they got a big history, the Lewises. Wild drinkers. Wild gamblers.’”

Jerry Lee Lewis’ Rare Tracks is wild, as well. It’s a collection of – as the title suggest – rare tracks (for ‘89 anyway) from Lewis’ Sun Records years (1956-1963) cut by Lewis as either demos, B-sides, or album tracks that didn’t make it or ended up as filler. There’s a lot of covers, like his rendition of the 1930′s Shelton Brothers “Deep Elem Blues,” Billy Mize’s “It All Depends,” The Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “In the Mood,” the 1958 hit “Wild One (Real Wild Child)” and Billy Ward & the Dominoes’ “Sixty Minute Man.” He even covers himself (sort of) with a very literal remake of “Whole Lotta Shakin’” which is barely tweaked to “Whole Lot of Twistin’ Going On” (it’s still a great song). And his original composition “Pumpin’ Piano Rock” which the liner notes describe as having the promise of “the perfect theme song for him” is great but when it first came out, finally, in the 70′s he’d already had enough theme songs that it was “anticlimactic” and thus overlooked.