From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Thu Dec 5, 2002 6:20 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Little Richard LITTLE RICHARD Born Richard Wayne Penniman, 5 December 1932, Macon, Georgia More than anyone else, it was Little Richard who turned me on to rock 'n' roll. It's still my (humble) opinion that nothing in music matches his Specialty recordings in terms of excitement. Alas, the thrill of hearing Little Richard for the first time is something that can be experienced only once in a lifetime. After leaving home at the age of 14, Penniman had flounced onstage as Princess Lavonne, a minstrel-show drag queen, and by eighteen he was a cross-dressed fixture of the variety shows and revues that crisscrossed the South, learning the tricks of the trade from female impersonators who performed alongside him. When he turned to rhythm and blues under the stage name Little Richard, he had dispensed with the drag queen's skirts, but he retained her sequins, her makeup, her pompadour, her strutting self-confidence and her way with words. "This is Little Richard, King of the Blues", the bisexual Penniman announced to audiences in Southern black nightclubs, adding with a sly smile, "and the Queen, too!". He first recorded in late 1951 in Atlanta for RCA Records, cutting eight urban blues tracks with his mentor Billy Wright's Orchestra, 'Taxi Blues' being the first of four unsuccessful single releases on the label. He moved to Houston, Texas, in 1953, and with the Tempo Toppers (vocals) and the Deuces Of Rhythm (backing), he recorded four R&B tracks for the Peacock label, including 'Ain't That Good News'. Eight months later he recorded another four with Johnny Otis' Orchestra, but these were released only after his success on Specialty. In February 1955, at the suggestion of Lloyd Price, he sent an audition tape to Specialty Records. It arrived wrapped in a piece of paper "that looked as though someone had eaten off it", as Bumps Blackwell put it. Nevertheless, Blackwell was intrigued enough by what he heard to set up a recording session in New Orleans in September 1955. Backed by Cosimo Matassa's famous studio band (Lee Allen, Red Tyler, Huey Smith, Frank Fields, Justin Adams, Earl Palmer), Penniman ran through the songs on his audition tape and added a few others, but the result was formulaic and nothing more. There was certainly nothing in them that expressed the sheer outrageousness of his appearance. As Blackwell later put it, "If you look like Tarzan and sound like Mickey Mouse, it just doesn't work out." Beginning to despair of recording anything marketable, Blackwell suggested they break for lunch. During that break at the Dew Drop Inn, Richard jumped on the stage and began fooling around with the piano, pounding out a slightly obscene ditty : "Tutti Frutti, good booty, if it don't fit, don't force it, you can grease it, take it easy, tutti frutti, good booty." With 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 (# 17 pop, # 2 R&B), although, ridiculous as it now seems, Pat Boone's cover version outdid Richard's on the hit parade. The follow-up, 'Long Tall Sally', topped the R&B chart and was the first of his four US Top 10 hits, despite another cover (even more ridiculous than the previous one) by Pat Boone. 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'," "The Girl Can't Help It," "Jenny, Jenny," "Lucille," "Keep a Knockin'," "Good Golly, Miss Molly," that remain the foundation of his fame. His first LP, "Here's Little Richard" peaked at # 13 in the album charts in 1957. Richard's unforgettable appearances in early rock & roll movies, "Don't Knock The Rock" and 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 some 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, who were both great admirers of his work. 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 Richard to climb the charts again. He spent the rest of the sixties 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. 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 a minor 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, playing oldies shows. When he desired, he could still 'out-rock' anyone, but there was often too much Las Vegas glitter, excessive posturing and an element of self-parody. Since then, he's maintained his profile with a role in 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' (the movie's soundtrack also returned him to the charts, this time with "Great Gosh A-Mighty", produced by Stuart Colman) and guest appearances on soundtracks, compilations, and children's rock records. Seventy years old today, he recently announced his retirement, his final concert scheduled for February 2003. Still, he will remain one of rock & roll's most colourful icons. The leader of rebellious 50s rock 'n' roll, and the man who shook up the music business and the parents of the period, is now a much-loved personality accepted by all age groups. Further reading: Charles White, The life and times of Little Richard, the Quasar of Rock. New York : Harmony, 1984, updated paperback edition Da Capo Press, 1994. - John Garodkin, Little Richard Special (PPraestoe, Denmark : Mjoelner, 2nd ed. 1984) is a very detailed, but somewhat flawed discography (227 pages). A good (unofficial) website, with lots of links, is http://www.littlerichard.com/ Interview: http://poparttimes.com/archives/9809note.html His Specialty recordings have been reissued both as a 6 CD-set box-set (with many outtakes) on Ace ABOXCD 1 and as a 3 CD-set on Specialty SPCD 8508 ("The Specialty Sessions). There are several good one-CD compilations of his Specialty work, the most complete (25 tracks) being "The Georgia Peach" on Specialty SPCD 7012. The pre-Specialty recordings are on "The Formative Years, 1951-53" (Bear Family BCD 15448). DVD's: Little Richard (2000). Directed by Robert Townsend. Keep On Rockin' (1969 concert).