Linda Gail Lewis
The Boogie Woogie Country Girl
Growing up the little sister of the greatest rock and roll piano pounder of all time couldn't have been easy. Linda Gail Lewis followed directly in his outsized footsteps, learning how to roll the ivories with the same boogie-fired thunder that Jerry Lee summons every time he sits down to play. Linda Gail debuted on record at Sun in 1963 on a rowdy duet with the Killer, "Ain't Nothin' Shakin'," that laid unreleased. But she moved over to ABC-Paramount in '65 and belted the very un-Jerry Lee-like "Break Up The Party," a Dan Penn/Rick Hall composition helmed by future Elvis producer Felton Jarvis. She later landed at Smash Records, when her duet version of "Don't Let Me Cross Over" with Jerry Lee crashed the C&W Top Ten in 1969. More recently, Linda Gail made a 2000 duet album, You Win Again, with another bigger-than-life rock legend, Van Morrison, once again more than holding her own. Bio by Bill Dahl