Jerry Lee Lewis, the untamable rock ‘n’ roll pioneer whose outrageous talent, energy, and ego collided on such definitive records as “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and sustained a career otherwise upended by personal scandal, has died at the age of 87.

The last survivor of a generation of groundbreaking performers that included Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard, Lewis died at home.

It all began when he was a young boy and his father pulled up to their house in his truck and presented his son a dark-wood, upright set of keyboards.

He took to the piano immediately, and began sneaking off to Black juke joints and absorbing everything from gospel to boogie-woogie.

Of all the rock rebels to emerge in the 1950s, few captured the new genre's attraction and danger as unforgettably as the Louisiana-born piano player who called himself “The Killer."

He was a one-man stampede who made the fans scream and the keyboards swear, his live act so combustible that during a 1957 performance of “Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin’ On” on “The Steve Allen Show,” chairs were thrown at him like buckets of water on an inferno.

But in his private life, he raged in ways that might have ended his career today — and nearly did back then. In 1958, he was a contender to replace Presley as rock’s prime hit maker after Elvis was drafted into the Army. But while Lewis toured in England, the press learned three damaging things: He was married to 13-year-old (possibly even 12-year-old) Myra Gale Brown, she was his cousin, and he was still married to his previous wife.

His tour was canceled, he was blacklisted from the radio, and his earnings dropped overnight to virtually nothing. And yet Jerry Lee Lewis kept on going, and he reinvented himself as a country performer in the 1960s.

In 1970, John Lennon said it best about Jerry Lee Lewis’ contribution to music:

“No group, be it (the) Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ for my money.”

Jerry Lee Lewis lived his life his way and is now forever In Heaven with the Stars.