Linda Gail Lewis may be as sweet as caramel, but the woman’s got fiery rock and roll pumping through her veins. As rock and roll royalty, the little sister to the legendary Jerry Lee Lewis who she recorded and toured with throughout her life, she continues to rock her life away.
Linda Gail Lewis and her family band featuring her daughter Annie Marie Lewis and son in law Danny B. Harvey will perform for a special early show featuring songs and stories from her life on Friday, February 21 at The Continental Club.
“I have found that most people, not all but most of the people that I play gigs for, enjoy the stories I tell even more than they do the music. Not every audience is like that but when I’m doing a gig like the one I’ll be doing at the Continental I’ll tell a lot of stories because people will really be listening because it won’t be the 10 o’clock intoxicated people and there’s nothing wrong with that, I enjoy that too,” she says with an audible smile.
The late night rock and roll shows hold a special place in her heart still and at her weekly residency in Austin’s Sam’s Town Point, Lewis gets to play to the jovial nocturnal crowds and of course, remember her beloved brother.
“It reminds me of me and my brother just sitting in at Hernando’s Hideaway. When people are really rockin and really into it, then you gotta keep the music going. You can’t stop and do a lot of talking because everybody’s rocking but I do enjoy the story telling gigs and of course I do plenty of music as well.”
Lewis, originally from Louisiana, relocated to Texas in 2015 with her husband and former Stax promoter Eddie Braddock to be closer to her daughter at the suggestion of Annie Marie and Harvey.
Lewis describes how Harvey, an established player who has worked with many greats like Lemmy Kilmister, Nancy Sinatra, Slim Jim Phantom and Wanda Jackson to name a few, suggested she move to Austin assuring her that she would be well received.
“I worried about that because I do a lot of rockabilly ‘50s rock and roll style music and I thought that doesn’t seem to be that popular in Austin. It’s mostly people doing blues and western swing and I thought how are people going to respond to me?”
Her doubts quickly dissipated as she recalls playing the couple’s wedding that same year and the crowd at The White Horse going crazy for her. She can still see fellow rockabilly queen Rosie Flores dancing with her crutches in the air at the reception.
It was Harvey who also suggested that Lewis reach out to Sam’s Town Point owner Ramsay Midwood about playing there regularly. Lewis, in her usual respectful way, describes feeling nervous to ask Midwood for a slot but boy is she glad she did.
Midwood not only offered her a weekly Tuesday night gig, but also has been joining the band on stage playing songs Lewis used to do with her brother. “We’re having a lot of fun on that gig and I’m really honored that Ramsay would come up and play guitar with me and sing duets because I’m a big fan of his. He creates an incredible groove and it’s like magic, he’s amazing. I love having him up there with me.”
Lewis has been busy and again with the help of Harvey recently released her latest album Rockabilly Queen where she not only asserts herself as the queen that she is but also steps further into a role she doesn’t quite identify herself with, songwriter.
Though Lewis has written her own songs before and co-wrote many gems with Robbie Fulks on their fabulous 2018 album Wild, Wild, Wild she had never been so intentional as for Rockabilly Queen.
Lewis describes how Harvey let her know about the record deal with the condition she write four new songs. She describes the stress she felt saying “I’m not Willie Nelson that can just pick songs out of the air so I was absolutely desperate to figure something out.”
Figure something out she did as Lewis revisited some voice memos sent by her son where he talked out some heavy feelings he was having at the time. With Lewis’ own magic, the voice memos morphed into the rockers “Diggin’ My Way Out Of Hell” and the bluesy “Seven Long Years.”
Lewis also went on to write “Don’t Give Me No Lip” a playful poke at her hubby after a not so smooth trip the couple took and the sentimental track “I Knew That You Were Leaving” which the record company she now gladly calls home, Cleopatra Records, added to the album at the last minute.
Lewis describes waking from a dream about her brother with an overwhelming urge to drive to Memphis to see him only to become fully alert and remember the cruel reality that he is gone.
“When I wrote that song it was something that I had been experiencing since I lost him,” says Lewis of losing her brother in 2022. “Really it’s been the hardest thing because we were involved in so many different ways. Not only was he my brother and I loved him dearly as a brother because he was so good to me and my whole family,” says Lewis describing how her brother used his first check as a recording artist to take the family out of poverty.
“Then the other thing is that I am such a big fan of his music. I mean he’s my favorite singer, my favorite piano player, my favorite entertainer and my favorite everything and so I think about him all the time. I do think about him every single gig I do. I’m thinking about him from the beginning of it till the end of it,” describes Lewis saying she has to be careful not to let her mind wander too much into the past when at home or on stage.
She describes how memories of sitting around the table in the family’s old shack in Louisiana turn to heaven in her mind as she is now the last family member living, a powerful and sometimes painful place to be.
For Rockabilly Queen, Lewis and her family band, joined by Stray Cat drummer Slim Jim Phantom, went into an intimidating but familiar space for Lewis recording at Sun Studios in Memphis, the very musical home to her brother in the explosive early years of his career.
As Sun Studios serves as a museum by day, Lewis and her band had to get in all their recordings at night. She recalls feeling nervous until she saw Slim Jim Phantom and Harvey exchange satisfied smiles during the recording letting her quiet the little nagging voice in her head asking who she thought she was going into Sun Studios.
It’s hard to imagine a woman with as much talent and history as Lewis having imposter syndrome in any musical situation, but true to her sweet, country girl roots she always stays down to earth.
“I want to always be humble because it is just not in my personality to be arrogant, it’s just never going to happen. I loved my brother so much and I admired everything he did but he wouldn’t hesitate to say something to somebody during a gig if they screwed something up,” she says addressing his infamous threats to band members and others. “I could never do that. I just couldn’t hurt anybody feelings or embarrass them no matter how bad it is.”
Linda Gail Lewis will perform on Friday, February 21 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main, 6:30 p.m., $15-20.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
