While I discovered Richard Penniman's blazing 1950s sides for Specialty Records later than the first generation of rock'n'rollers had, the joyous fury of his work has thrilled me since age 15 and it will only end when I end. In 1977, friends and family in Texas went to see Saturday Night Fever at the movies but I didn't want to take part in what I perceived to be a phony culture (yeah, I was a stick in tbe mud and probably should have loosened up--disco music really wasn't so bad). Remaining at home on South Milam Street after they left, I put Little Richard on the stereo and jumped around the apartment. Rock'n'roll--now that was my idea of dancing! Different strokes for different folks.
In 1956, the arrival of Richard's music in Liverpool, England via Radio Luxembourg and a lonely few who bought obscure records electrified John Lennon (age 15) and Paul McCartney (not yet 14). They hadn't even met yet. Not so miraculously, the epiphany of hearing Elvis Presley a few months earlier became a wave of emotion that let Little Richard into their lives, too. Paul quickly became a startlingly good mimic of Richard's vocal style, one of several reasons the Beatles caught fire by late 1960, when they were playing six nights a week in Hamburg. It's doubtful they'd ever heard Penniman's predecessor Esquerita and they didn't need to.
The Fab Four had Little Richard fever and so did I after purchasing his 17 Original Grooviest Hits in the early '70s. The stunning power of these performances, most cut in New Orleans in 1955 and 1956, opened up new territory--territory with attitude. Elvis Presley--with four covers of Mr. Penniman on his first two LPs--and Buddy Holly would rush out their own versions, and don't forget that Jerry Lee Lewis and the Everly Brothers were also attracted to this persuasive euphoria. Influencing his contemporaries, Little Richard had arrived.
A few of my many favorites:
"All Around the World" (recorded in July or August 1956): Used in the '80s film Weird Science to great effect, when Richard pouted and screamed, "all around the world/rock' n 'roll is all they play," it wasn't true. And yet he made you believe every word.
"Lucille" (July 1956): Earl Palmer sounds like he's hitting the snare drum with a baseball bat and the Georgia Peach matches him measure for measure. As Specialty owner Art Rupe would say about the piano playing, "Richard only plays in one key, but he's good."
"Heeby-Jeebies" (May 1956): Where Little Richard is gasping for air by the time it ends. John Lennon would say that the man's screams made the hairs stand on the back of his (John's) neck.
"Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey": There are a few versions of this, but the best one was taped in November 1955 and the Beatles modeled their remake after it.
"Keep a-Knockin' " (January 1957): Charles Connor from Richard's road band the Upsetters created a fabulous drum intro, pinched by John Bonham for Led Zeppelin's "Rock'n'Roll," while Richard turns in a seismic performance with hollering and "woos" taken from the gospel singer Marion Williams' playbook.
And there are bunches more from this brief, dizzying time period. Little Richard might have been the first hard rock vocalist, yet even when he returned from the stratosphere in the '60s and beyond, his less frantic records on Vee Jay, OKeh and Reprise were and are worth hearing.
Scores of artists have skillfully covered Little Richard like Creedence, the Sonics and Wanda Jackson without equaling his mastery of his most uninhibited triumphs. Perhaps the Beatles' "Long Tall Sally" (1964--one take) came closest. And in 1965 and 1966, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels used "Jenny Jenny" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" in their first two hits, both inspired, roaring medleys.
But as Ryder would say in 1971, "I could never be the best singer in rock'n'roll. Little Richard is."