She Even Woke Me Up To Say Goodbye

Chronique

Jerry Lee Lewis turned to pure country in 1968, releasing two killer albums (no pun intended) in a row with Another Place Another Time and She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left of Me), which brought him the elusive success he so desired, so he and Smash cemented his reputation as a country crooner by releasing several albums in 1969 that were explicitly collections of covers of classic country albums. So, it wasn't until early 1970 that he unveiled a record of primarily new songs with She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye. He was riding high on his new hits -- so successful that new collections of his Sun singles made it to the country Top Ten -- and took that as encouragement to do whatever he damn well pleased on this new record. So, he cut pure rock & roll (a thundering cover of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"), inserted his name in every other song (in every verse on "Since I Met You Baby," where he manages to find a place to say his full name), laughed and leered, growled and crooned, pounding and gliding down the keyboard in equal measure. These are the fieriest, loosest performances he's given since leaving Sun (not counting, of course, the then-unreleased Star Club live recording), which jolts the hardcore country of Another Place and She Still Comes Around to a different stratosphere. Those were spectacular pure country records by any measure, but this is a spectacular pure Jerry Lee country record, where he's the center of every cut, every performance, and the record is tremendously addictive for it. Another stellar Smash platter from the Killer.
© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo