Rock’n’roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis dead at 87

Jerry Lee Lewis, the piano-playing singer who pioneered rock and roll before a marital scandal dealt a blow to his career, has died at the age of 87.

His publicist Zach Farnum announced his death in a statement on Friday, mere days after his death was erroneously reported in the press.

Farnum said Lewis died of “natural causes” at his Mississippi home, south of Memphis. Judith Coghlan Lewis, his seventh wife, was by his side at his time of death.

Lewis’s distinctive piano-playing matched with his on-stage personality earned him a spot among the rock’n’roll royalty of the 1950s, along with the nickname ‘The Killer’.

Indeed, he jammed with Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash in an impromptu session on a December night at the Sun Record Studios in Tennessee. This session was dubbed the “Million Dollar Quartet”, of which Lewis was the last surviving member.

But Lewis fell from grace rapidly after it was revealed that his third wife, Myra Gale Brown, was his first cousin once removed, and she was only 13 years old when they married.

He also once drunkenly cashed into the front gates of Presley's Graceland home. Police arrested Lewis that night after finding a gun in his car. He was charged with public drunkenness and carrying a pistol.