It’s not something you’re going to read about on the cover of Time or see red-flagged on your Twitter feed.

But as pop culture milestones go, it’s not insignificant. I’m speaking about the end of rock’s iconic first generation.

With the passing of Chuck Berry and Fats Domino in 2017, only two tent poles of the genre’s early days remain to carry the torch: Jerry Lee Lewis, 82, and Little Richard, 85.

With Richard in a wheelchair in frail health, that leaves Lewis, the meanest, wildest, most depraved proto-rocker of them all, as the last man standing.

Consider the irony. From the roster of legends who created the genre — Elvis Presley to Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley to Bill Haley — who would have predicted the most deranged redneck to ever plant his bum on a piano stool would be the lone survivor?

Call it the Keith Richards Effect: artists who tempt fate and flirt with self-destruction — if they don’t succeed in killing themselves — become like human cockroaches. Nothing short of a nuclear blast can dislodge them.

Read more:

Fats Domino, rock ’n’ roll pioneer, dies at age 89

Chuck Berry was the true king of rock ’n’ roll

It’s not just the classic rockers who are dying

In a way, it’s fitting. The ’50s were the Wild West of rock ’n’ roll, with salacious rockers rising from the mists of mainstream conformity like Godzilla from the haze of an atomic meltdown, terrorizing respectable society with their leering sexuality and antichurch bravado.

Guys like Presley and Lewis made it up as they went along, operating by instinct, laying the groundwork for future generations.

Eventually, it became corporatized, commodified. Business practices were applied, rough edges smoothed out.

And while a career in rock never achieved the respectability of, say, dentistry or business school, the museums and awards shows that honour it today are a far cry from the panic over “devil’s music” that greeted its arrival as a frightening musical disrupter.

It was the age of Pat Boone and Perry Como, Connie Francis and crew cuts, Doris Day and Leave It to Beaver.

Civil rights were a battle yet to be won. Gay people were in the closet. Women’s rights were 15 years in the future.

And there was Lewis, pounding out “Great Balls of Fire” with a demented leer while smacking the piano with his butt.

“They said ‘Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On’ and ‘Great Balls of Fire’ were risqué records,” he told People on the 60th anniversary of his 1957 hits. “I couldn’t see anything risqué about it!”

That’s because this is a guy who — unaware he was doing anything inappropriate — married his 13-year-old cousin (which derailed his career for a decade), threatened to kill Elvis in a drunken stupor, was implicated in the deaths of two of his six wives, shot his bass player and appalled teen idol Paul Anka so much on a ’50s package tour the Canadian songwriter still sounded traumatized in his 2013 autobiography.

“I can’t even explain how abusively unpredictable this guy could be,” he noted. “His whole lingo and attitude were redneck obnoxious — it was just nothing like I’d ever seen before . . . He was a mean redneck, a real nasty guy spewing venom at me at 25,000 feet crossing the Pacific Ocean.”

There was no political correctness, no deference to societal norms. And it wasn’t just Lewis.

Elvis was a hillbilly trucker who dated a 14-year-old.

Chuck Berry went to prison for creepy sexual offences.

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Little Richard bounced between religion and rock, grappling with his sexuality.

The one thing they had in common: prodigious talent and a desire to cash in on what was then assumed to be a passing fad.

Who knew these pioneering tunesmiths, melding country, R&B and some unique form of postwar anarchy, would spawn a half-century of innovation before rock petered into the retro-laned slop pit in which it now exists?

Yeah, I know. Critics have been writing about the death of rock since its chart presence waned against hip hop and dance music almost a decade ago.

But so what?

As long as Lewis is releasing critically acclaimed albums like 2006’s Last Man Standing and its 2010 successor, Mean Old Man, feted by everyone from Mick Jagger to Eric Clapton, rock’s inspirational foundation remains intact.

“Rock ’n’ roll, blues, boogie woogie, you can look at BB King, look at Elvis Presley, you can look at the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but when it comes down to it, it’s Jerry Lee Lewis,” said Lewis, speaking of himself in the third person to the Guardian.

When the tough-as-nails Killer heads to that Great Delete Bin in the Sky, rock in its purest form — as a visceral jolt that upended decades of musical conformity — will cease to exist.

Like the Jazz Age and Big Band era, its early years will be studied in academic texts and observed on three-minute YouTube clips, nostalgic flotsam from the past, free of historical context.

But the thrill, as BB King once sang, will be gone.

From the perspective of 2017, with a splintered pop culture and niche-driven music industry, it’s not clear anyone will notice — or care — when rock’s last founding father topples over from old age.

But make no mistake. If it weren’t for outrageous, larger-than-life characters like Lewis, nothing that came after would even exist.

That gnarly, ticked off, gun-wielding, pill-popping, cousin-marrying lunatic with the chip on his shoulder may be loathsome by today’s standards. But he’s part of the DNA that got us where we are today, the driving impetus behind every musician who said to hell with convention and did their own thing.

So stick around, Killer. We may be a little bit scared of you — even mildly appalled — but without your like, the last 60 years of pop music would have been a lot less interesting.

Joel Rubinoff writes for the Waterloo Region Record. Email him at jrubinoff@therecord.com.