Old, weathered piano carries history

Covered by a glass case in The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland sits an old, plain and well-used Starck upright piano.

It’s far from a beautiful concert stage piece.

Those are almost always massive ebony black grand pianos with names like Steinway and Sons, Bosendorfer, Baldwin, Estonia, Yamaha and are the finest pianos on the planet.

For those unfamiliar, the full market value of a Steinway and Sons full grand piano, or any of those previously mentioned, can easily exceed the value of the car in your garage. Depending on where your house is, it could be more valuable than many a modest small town Midwestern community home.

So, why is this plain, old, weathered upright piano given such an honorary place of prominence as The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

Many years ago, a father literally pawned his house to obtain the then-new piano to give his son an instrument to learn to play.

He had help and carried it into their modest Louisiana home and his son got busy practicing, and practicing and practicing how to play it. Two cousins who lived close by came around and waited their turns to practice on that Starck upright piano.

The son was Jerry Lee Lewis. Yep, “The Killer” himself got his childhood start pounding away on that plain, old upright. 

The cousins came around, and Jimmy Swaggart took his playing on it into a gospel music direction. The last cousin who came around was timid and shy and Jimmy taught him a few chords. Mickey Gilley took his playing in a more country theme.

Yes indeed, the same old, plain Jane upright piano was the catalyst for three different, yet extremely influential and lucratively successful music careers.

Jerry Lee Lewis in rock and roll in its infancy, a career that influenced countless rock acts for decades.

Jimmy Swaggart in gospel music and televangelism that spanned the globe at the height of its success, based out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

Mickey Gilley, who took his brand of silky smooth country into movie theaters and nightclubs with successful music soundtracks and even more successful nightclubs in Pasadena, Texas, and Branson, Missouri. All three got their start in the humble beginnings of an old upright piano that a house was pawned to obtain.

All three went on to vast wealth and success.

One piano.

Three stellar careers.

That plain, old, unrestored Starck, donated by the family of the late, great Jerry Lee Lewis is exactly where it needs to be, under glass in The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.