Jerry Lee Lewis was not a jazz artist, but we have a unique connection to him here at KCCK.
We house the historic piano which was used for many years at Cedar Rapids’ Danceland Ballroom. The ballroom was the concert nerve center of town for decades, in business from 1926-1968.
Throughout the Swing Era, nearly all the major stars stopped at Danceland, including Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra (with Tommy Dorsey,), Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, and Louis Armstrong, to name a few. We like to think that some of them played the piano that now lives in our studios.
In the Fifties and under new management, Danceland became a home for live rock and roll, beginning with Bill Haley and The Comets in 1955, the dawn of the rock and roll era, and continuing for the rest of the hall’s life, hosting performances from Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, The Four Seasons, The Yardbirds, The Beach Boys…
And Jerry Lee Lewis, nicknamed The Killer for his frenetic performance style that often included banging on the piano with his feet and jumping up onto the instrument to exhort the crowd into a parent-alarming frenzy. Once, he even set fire to a piano onstage.
The Killer performed at Danceland not once but twice, in 1964 and 1966. Legend has it that it at one of these shows, Lewis jumped up on the piano and broke off a piece of the instrument’s lid. The partially-repaired damage is clearly visible in the picture.
When Danceland was demolished in 1968 to make way for the arena known today as The Alliant Powerhouse, the piano was donated to the Linn County Historical Society (now The History Center). The piano came to KCCK in 2015 when the Center didn’t have the space to display it in the Douglas Mansion.
Lewis was a volatile and unpredictable man whose legacy is problematic, but there is no denying that he defined the role of the piano in rock and roll. We enjoy telling the story of our unique piano to KCCK guests.
Thanks to Steve Wilson, whose www.dancelandcriowa.com provides a history of the ballroom, complete with posters from shows. And to www.concertarchives.org, which features a user-submitted list of Danceland shows, which provided the Jerry Lee Lewis performance dates.