Little
Richard
One
of the original rock & roll greats, Little Richard merged
the fire of gospel with New Orleans R&B, pounding the piano
and wailing with gleeful abandon. While numerous other R&B
greats of the early 1950s had been moving in a similar direction,
none of them matched the sheer electricity of Richard's vocals.
With his bullet-speed deliveries, ecstatic trills, and the overjoyed
force of personality in his singing, he was crucial in upping
the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different,
guise of rock & roll. Although he was only a hitmaker for
a couple of years or so, his influence upon both the soul and
British Invasion stars of the 1960s was vast, and his early hits
remain core classics of the rock repertoire.
Heavily steeped
in gospel music while growing up in Georgia, when Little Richard
began recording in the early '50s he played unexceptional jump
blues/R&B that owed a lot to his early inspirations Billy
Wright and Roy Brown. In 1955, at Lloyd Price's suggestion, Richard
sent a demo tape to Specialty Records, who were impressed enough
to sign him and arrange a session for him in New Orleans. That
session, however, didn't get off the ground until Richard began
fooling around with a slightly obscene ditty during a break. With
slightly cleaned-up lyrics, "Tutti Frutti" was the record
that gave birth to Little Richard as we know him -- the gleeful
"woo!"s, the furious piano playing, the sax-driven,
pedal-to-the-metal rhythm section. It was also his first hit,
although, ridiculous as it now seems, Pat Boone's cover version
outdid Richard's on the hit parade.
Pat Boone
would also try to cover Richard's next hit, "Long Tall Sally,"
but by that time it was evident that audiences black and white
much preferred the real deal. In 1956 and 1957, Richard reeled
off a string of classic hits -- "Long Tall Sally," "Slippin'
and "Slidin'," "Jenny, Jenny," "Keep
a Knockin'," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," "The
Girl Can't Help It" -- that remain the foundation of his
fame. While Richard's inimitable mania was the key to his best
records, he also owed a lot of his success to the gutsy playing
of ace New Orleans session players like Lee Allen (tenor sax),
Alvin Tyler (baritone sax), and especially Earl Palmer (drummer),
who usually accompanied the singer in both New Orleans and Los
Angeles studios. Richard's unforgettable appearances in early
rock & roll movies, especially The Girl Can't Help It, also
did a lot to spread the rock & roll gospel to the masses.
Little Richard
was at the height of his commercial and artistic powers when he
suddenly quit the business during an Australian tour in late 1957,
enrolling in a Bible college in Alabama shortly after returning
to the States. Richard had actually been feeling the call of religion
for a while before his announcement, but it was nonetheless a
shock to both his fans and the music industry. Specialty drew
on unreleased sessions for a few more hard-rocking singles in
the late '50s, but Richard virtually vanished from the public
eye for a few years. When he did return to recording, it was as
a gospel singer, cutting a few little-heard sacred sides for End,
Mercury, and Atlantic in the early '60s.
By 1962, though,
Richard had returned to rock & roll, touring Britain to an
enthusiastic reception. Among the groups that supported him on
those jaunts were the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, whose vocals
(Paul McCartney's especially) took a lot of inspiration from Richard's.
In 1964, the Beatles cut a knockout version of "Long Tall
Sally," with McCartney on lead, that may have even outdone
the original. It's been speculated that the success of the Beatles,
and other British Invaders who idolized Richard, finally prompted
the singer into making a full-scale comeback as an unapologetic
rock & roller. Hooking up with Specialty once again, he had
a small hit in 1964 with "Bama Lama Bama Loo." These
and other sides were respectable efforts in the mold of his classic
'50s sides, but tastes had changed too much for Little Richard
to climb the charts again. He spent the rest of the '60s in a
continual unsuccessful comeback, recording for Vee-Jay (accompanied
on some sides by Jimi Hendrix, who was briefly in Richard's band),
OKeh, and Modern (for whom he even tried recording in Memphis
with Stax session musicians).
It was the
rock & roll revival of the late '60s and early '70s, though,
that really saved Richard's career, enabling him to play on the
nostalgia circuit with great success (though he had one last small
hit, "Freedom Blues," in 1970). He had always been a
flamboyant performer, brandishing a six-inch pompadour and mascara,
and constant entertaining appearances on television talk shows
seemed to ensure his continuing success as a living legend. Yet
by the late '70s, he'd returned to the church again. Somewhat
predictably, he eased back into rock and show business by the
mid-'80s. Since then, he's maintained his profile with a role
in Down and Out in Beverly Hills and guest appearances on soundtracks,
compilations, and children's rock records. At this point it's
safe to assume that he never will get that much-hungered-for comeback
hit, but he remains one of rock & roll's most colorful icons,
still capable of turning on the charm and charisma in his infrequent
appearances in the limelight.
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