Jerry Lott
American musician
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Jerry Lott (January 30, 1938 – September 4, 1983) was an American rockabilly musician frequently identified as the persona and pseudonym The Phantom, as well as by his initial stage name "Marty Lott," for which he is credited for independently writing and recording "Love Me" and "Whisper Your Love" in 1958.[1] Upon the release of his recordings as a single by Dot Records in January 1960 under the Phantom pseudonym, a marketing epithet used by the label to maintain an air of mystery around his identity.[2][1]
Biography
Early life and 1958 recordings
Jerry Lott was born on 30 January 1938 in Prichard, Alabama. The son of Willie Washington Lott (1914-1996) and Bertha L. McLeod (1918-1987). In the early 1950s, Lott relocated with his parents to their native Leakesville, Mississippi,[3][4] where he learned to play acoustic guitar, performing on the school stage, at a nearby store in Lucedale, and talent shows around Greene County.[5]
Lott served in the U.S. Navy from 1956 to 1958. Upon discharge, He had become a fan of Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll,[6] and married Billie Faye Starling on 8 November 1958 in George County, Mississippi,[1]. Lott struggled with alcoholism[7]
Rockabilly recordings
Lott recorded his three original songs at Gulf Coast Studios in Mobile, Alabama in 1958, with a band comprising Bill Yates on piano, , Lott's performance was so unhinged that he reportedly blew a control knob off the studio's mixing board during the second take. The band was so swept up in the chaos that the pianist knocked over his stool and the guitar player’s glasses were left hanging sideways.[8][7]
Poorly received across the regional music circuit, Lott pitched his demo tape to Pat Boone at church in Los Angeles in 1959, and Boone was impressed with Lott's enthusiasm to get Lott signed with Boone's talent agent James Blackburn, and negotiate a January 1960 release on the Dot Records record label[1][9]
Later life
In 1966, Lott was seriously injured and paralyzed from below the neck while inside a vehicle that plunged 600 feet into a ravine near York, South Carolina.[10][4]. Settling on a farm in unincorporated Vernal, Lucedale, Mississippi. Lott was interviewed in 1980 by Derek Glenister for New Commotion magazine, recalling that Elvis Presley changed his "inner self" and inspired him to play heavier music.[1] When he began playing music, Lott used his nickname, Marty, as a stage name.[1][11][5]
Upon the release of his single, Love Me, he was supported by Pat Boone's production company, Cooga Mooga/Agoom-Agooc and billed as The Phantom, though while on concert tour, Marty Lott was regionally billed as "The Gulf Coast Fireball."[6][1] In the same interview, He stated that he went into the studio after working for months on "Whisper Your Love," intended to be the a-side, but lacking a b-side until "someone suggested I wrote something like Elvis ... 'See if you spark rock 'n' roll a little bit'".[5][12] On the second take, the one that was used, he "blew one of the controls off the wall".[5] He died in Vernal-Lucedale, outside of Leakesville, Mississippi, on September 5, 1983.[13][14]
Pop Culture influence
"Love Me" was covered by The Cramps, a psychobilly group, as well as The Bananamen, a side project of British rockabilly band The Sting-rays.[6] and has been cited as early example of heavy, intense, and overdriven music before such genres had a name.
The mask-wearing stage persona of The Phantom has been been described as perhaps the earliest example of a stage alter ego, preceding Jimmy "Orion" Ellis,[15] Ziggy Stardust, the members of Kiss and Marilyn Manson.[16]
The song Love Me was used in a Southern Comfort commercial in 2014.[17]