After scoring a dozen country hits since 1968, Lewis returned to the pop charts with "Me and Bobby McGee" in 1971 and "Chantilly Lace" in 1972, and this turn of events, coupled with a revitalized public interest in vintage rock and roll, inspired Mercury to fly Lewis to London to record with a cadre of gifted British and Irish musicians, including Rory Gallagher, Kenney Jones, Albert Lee, Alvin Lee, Peter Frampton, Gary Wright, and Klaus Voormann.
The year before, Lewis had joined Chuck Berry and Little Richard as part of a historic rock and roll show at Wembley Stadium, the first concert ever in that arena.
Having toiled in obscurity for most of the '60s, Lewis was the most bankable country star in the world by 1973, living the rock and roll lifestyle to the hilt; according to Rick Bragg's authorized biography Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story, Jerry Lee was commanding $10,000 per show and had his own plane, first a DC-3, with "room for all manner of hangers-on and amiable drunks and pretty women with no particular place to go," and later a Convair 604.
Part of the reason for this may have been the fact that Lewis had rarely ever recorded outside of Tennessee and, feeling out of his comfort zone and surrounded by a bevy of long-haired musicians, he masked his insecurity by ramping up his already considerable bravado.
His temper, always infamous, was not helped by the booze and pills that sustained him, and although the musicians (who were actually only a few years younger than him, for the most part) were reverential, Lewis's flippant attitude comes across.
Produced by Steve Rowland, the album consists mostly of '50s rock and roll remakes, but does contain a couple interesting contemporary cuts: a foot-stomping version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" and the Gordon Lightfoot classic "Early Morning Rain."
Lewis would later confess that he was impressed by the British musicians and their professionalism, stating in A Half Century of Hits, "I sat down at the piano, put the headphones on and started to record.