The family history would include stories of the Mississippi River, sex scandals, the Old Testament, the marrying of a teenaged cousin, Natchez, the Mississippi River, honkytonk piano, Southern gospel music, urban cowboys, prostitutes, heads of hair thick and folded back, the World Faith Center, Gilley’s, Haney’s Big House, laughs, tears, regrets, and hundreds of millions of dollars.
Save for the part about men with an extraordinary talent to sing and tickle the ivories and hypnotically entertain as few could, it’s a family history same as mine, and probably the same as yours.
The death of Jimmy Swaggart Tuesday closed the book on an unlikely trio of cousins from the banks of the South Mississippi, each a showman to the core.
What a free-for-all family reunions must have been.
Swaggart was 90.
Cousin Mickey Gilley died in May of 2022, age 86.
Cousin Jerry Lee Lewis died four months later, October of 2022, age 87.
Lots of hard, hard running in those combined 263 years.
Gilley scored 17 No. 1 hits and, of the trio, would win the merit badge for Caused The Least Amount Of Trouble. Jerry Lee was insanely good for a really long time and made the jump from rock to country; he was king of both.
“Back home,” he says during a piano riff in an old cut called ‘House of Blue Lights,’ “they call this boogie…woogie.”
Stud Alert.
And Jimmy Swaggart, well, he was a phenomenon hard to describe — but not one too hard for me to feel uncomfortably comfortable with, not if you grew up with a grandmother who loved his records, played them on a stereo the size of a back-porch deep freeze, and sometimes drank a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
I wouldn’t have trusted him with a single dollar bill but bought his records quick as they came out and once saw him in the Monroe Civic Center, where working men in short-sleeved white shirts and skinny ties took up offering in cleaned-out plastic gallon ice-cream buckets.
I put money in, same as several thousand of my friends who were there with me, singing along under my breath while Swag played “I’ve Got a Mansion Just Over the Hilltop.”
Hallelujah and … do you mind singing one more? Or, like, 10 more? Please?
This is a Cast No Stones Bureau when it comes to “The Boys From Ferriday.” If the trio were in their primes and performing somewhere tonight within driving distance, I know of at least one person who’d be there with an anxious smile, looking for a seat up close, and toting folding money.
The Top Five Swaggart Songs? Please. You could sway me but I’ll go with these:
Where Could I Go (But To The Lord);
Come Into the Ark;
No One Ever Cared For Me Like Jesus;
Let Down Your Nets; and,
Precious Lord Take My Hand (or Hide Thou Me, but this might be tainted since “Hide Thou Me” is my favorite gospel song).
For argument’s sake, and since this is the End of an Era (and those more hypocritical might say End of an Error), let’s do the Top Five for Jerry Lee:
Another Place, Another Time;
One More Time With Feelin’ (written by Kris Kristofferson, so a musical case of game recognizing game);
Who Will the Next Fool Be;
Great Balls of Fire; and,
Think About It, Darlin’, on the 1972 album produced by Shreveport music wizard Jerry Kennedy. Every one of the Jerry Kennedy/Jerry Lee Lewis ballads is a masterpiece, expressive and dynamic.
And finally, the Top Five Mickey Gilley Songs.
True Love Ways;
You Don’t Know Me;
Object of My Affection (more boogie woogie);
Power of Positive Drinking;
It’s a Headache Tomorrow (Or A Heartache Tonight).
Where is Jimmy Swaggart now, one might ask? You can search the world over and never never ever EVER find someone less qualified than I am to judge another man’s life. But I hope he’s somewhere playing the piano, and I hope my grandmomma can hear him.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu