Cookoo Charlie and The Killer Love Their Meat, Man! (A Cookoo Charlie Soundtrack: Second Installment

Growing up in the seventies, not only did i know my generation's music, I knew my parents' music better than they did. If you played a song from the fifties 7 out of 10 times, i knew the title and artist. Sadly, today I'd probably know the title, but end up fishing around my brain for the artist's name.

One of the founding fathers of rock 'n' roll that seriously seasoned my adolescent upbringing was The Killer, Jerry Lee Lewis. He was the first true punk rocker. He pounded those piano keys with, and he himself had, ATTITUDE. No one wanted to follow Jerry Lee on stage. i think if an earthquake rattled during a Killer show, there was a time when the Ferriday Fireball might've jumped up on his piano and belted out the best version of Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On of his career, while his fans scrambled for the doors or dove under their seats.

While in my teens, i paid $30 for my first Jerry Lee Lewis album, a live recording called The Greatest Show On Earth. It was up for auction in Goldmine, a record collector's magazine. Without a doubt, i overbid for it, but I HAD to have the "mother humpin'" record.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Jerry Lee twice in concert. The first time was in the early eighties at a playhouse in Warren, Ohio. The show was not only memorable for The Killer's performance, but it was the only concert my parents and I saw saw together. My second opportunity to see Jerry Lee was in 1996 at Ponderosa Park in Salem, Ohio. My grandmother was a member of the park and she had her trailer parked there year round. You could listen to a concert, whle you sat playing cards and drinking. If you had a mind to, that is.

Not having purchased any tickets for Jerry Lee's show, my girlfriend, now life partner, Judy and I walked up to the stage offering us the best view of the stage. 10 to 15 minutes later, a Ponderosa Park employee came by, spotted us and asked if we wanted to go in to see the show. Responding in the affirmative, he handed us a pair of third row tickets. Hot damn!!

Today The Killer is still alive and rockin' his life away. Having turned 79 on September 29, we can celebrate Jerry Lee's birthday by listening to his new album, Rock & Roll Time, and reading the new biography, Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, both due out on October, 28.

I chose Jerry Lee's Meat Man for the Cookoo Charlie soundtrack because how can a cannibal clown not love and relate to a song about a man who has to have his meat. It's a delicious little ditty.

On a side note, i've rewritten some of the lyrics to Meat Man to fit even more into Cookoo's world.