Catch My Soul: That Time The Killer Jerry Lee Met Willy the Shake
Othello: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul / But I do love thee! and when I love thee not / Chaos is come again.
with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago in “Catch My Soul”
A musical adaptation of Othello with the Killer himself, Jerry Lee Lewis, as Iago, Catch My Soul started out as not much more than a gleam in the eye of the aptly-named Jack Good. Actor, producer, journalist, manager, and most of all, rock-’n-roll impresario. Good was the man behind Shindig!, one of the first — and one of the best — of the rock-’n-roll television variety shows.
Jack Good had wanted to produce a rock-’n-roll version of Othello since he was an undergrad at Oxford in the Fifties. In 1958, Good had spotted rocker Jerry Lee Lewis stalking angrily through a hotel lobby and knew he had found his Iago. But it would take nearly another decade before Catch My Soul would go into production.
In 1965 Good was looking for new worlds to conquer. He recruited Ray Pohlman, Shindig’s! musical director, to start writing the score for Catch My Soul. With 19 songs in the can, Good starting casting around for his acting ensemble in late `66, signing Jerry Lee Lewis for the role of Iago in August.
One of rock’s early showmen, Jerry Lee had his first big hit in 1957 with Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On, followed by Great Balls of Fire. Jerry Lee picked up his nickname “The Killer” at around the same time for knocking his audiences dead with his wild boogie-woogie piano playing as well as on-stage antics that included — way pre-Jimi Hendrix — setting his piano on fire.
Jerry Lee and Jack already knew each other from The Killer’s Shindig! performances, and why Jerry would consider doing a rockin’ version of Shakespeare wasn’t a mystery. In the peaks and valleys that made up his musical career— and Jerry Lee had more than a few, including the fall-out from his marrying his 13-year-old cousin in 1958 —Jerry Lee was definitely down in a valley so low during the mid-Sixties.
But Catch My Soul turned out to more than just a paying gig that turned up at the right time. In Shakespeare’s Iago Jerry Lee found a kindred…
