little richard - C or D?

I don't know how to embed a Facebook post, but Bob Dylan expanded a bit on his tweet already posted above:

I just heard the news about Little Richard and I’m so grieved. He was my shining star and guiding light back when I was only a little boy. His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything I would do. I played some shows with him in Europe in the early nineties and got to hang out in his dressing room a lot. He was always generous, kind and humble. And still dynamite as a performer and a musician and you could still learn plenty from him. In his presence he was always the same Little Richard that I first heard and was awed by growing up and I always was the same little boy. Of course he’ll live forever. But it’s like a part of your life is gone.

Has anyone seen the fake ten year old Little Richard video popping up in their social media feed?

He's in fucking outer space in that 1972 interview, I love it

I realize this is very obvious, but watching some of the videos that have been going around has made it clearer than ever how much Prince and Morris Day lifted from Little Richard, image-wise.

Also fine form in A Film About Jimi Hendrix and Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll: Bo Diddly wonders how come some things kept going strange back in the day---Richard: "You was black!" Bo hesitates to respond---Richard: "You was black!" Chuck: "Aw tell him again, he still didn't get it."

<3

I love love love his early 60’s gospel

His voice is so pure, and when he hits the high notes he sounds like Jackie Wilson it’s breathtaking

https://youtu.be/jQxU7gQqar4

Rolling Stone has various tributes. One from John Fogerty is pretty good, one from John Waters is outstanding.

This is the time Waters met Richard

https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/28/john-waters-met-little-richard

Thanks, good stuff.

^^^

Little Richard, C or D?
SHUT UP!
― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Thursday, June 3, 2004 6:51 AM (fifteen years ago)

Not seeing it online today, but somewhere I read an interview w Sonny Sharrock: asked about punk, he replies, "I saw Little Richard at the Apollo in 1955." (Or '56?) "You can't get more punk rock than that."

Also, it's a good thing I don't have my copy of Mystery Train at hand---"Why, never in the history!"---or I'd be transcribing the entire saga of his talk show appearance in the crucial first pages---can search for HE GOT WHAT HE WANTED AND LOST WHAT HE HAD, which will take you to Google Books---and YouTube...

Speaking of which, Marcus's Grooviest 17 Original Hits! entry in the Stranded discography is one of my favourites: "Anarchy in the U.S.A., about the time the Sex Pistols were born. This was some kind of unhinged New Orleans R&B, at first anyway, but even Fats Domino must have wondered what the hell was going on."

That Mystery Train transcription took a lot of liberties to say the least, but print the legend, I guess.

Blasting him this morning (I love it when my teenagers yell at me to turn down my music) and "Green Power" came on. Pure funk with Little Richard singing? Amazing! I'm not familiar with this period, I want more!

The Reprise compilation is a great source for that era LR. Funk, country, gospel, funky gospel country. Juicy.

I first read MYSTERY TRAIN forty years ago and I can’t think of anything else burned into my head as permanently as the first three pages. #RIPLittleRichard pic.twitter.com/dRJVYlVXjg

— Chris Barrus (@quartzcity) May 9, 2020

Burned in my brain too, but seems like most of that all-caps part was interpolated from somewhere else.

Here is the more recent John Waters piece: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/john-waters-little-richard-996961/

Operation Powder Room in operation!

My favorite new-to-me trivia

1) as an ordained minister, Little Richard officiated many weddings including (but not limited to)
Demi Moore & Bruce Willis in 1987
Cyndi Lauper & David Thornton in 1991
Tom Petty and Dana York in 2001

2) He lived at the Hyatt on Sunset in the 80’s and 90’s: loads of celebs have posted about brief encounters, everyone from Johnny Knoxville to Norman Blake from Teenage Fanclub & Victor deLorenzo of Violent Femmes

Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry circa 1987 from Berry’s documentary. Little Richard telling the truth about why Black artists couldn’t perform like they wanted to on American Bandstand. Whole lotta legendary energy and Black Excellence in this conversation. pic.twitter.com/gVxPie5Rwa

— The Funky Educator (@MrKinetik) May 9, 2020

Great scene from a great movie.

Former Chicago Reader critic Bill Wyman wrote an extensive obituary for NY Magazine, and it's the best one published because it doesn't hold ANYTHING back. The direct quotes from the authorized biography alone are pretty stunning:

https://www.vulture.com/2020/05/little-richard-put-wild-sex-into-the-top-40-for-good.html#_ga=2.224055324.603100358.1589089370-1881858677.1492321179

From that piece:

Richard abandoned his band — and headed south. (The band, left stranded, improvised by hiring another wild Georgia singer with a high pompadour, a man who had just been released from prison, to step in and bill himself as Little Richard. His name was James Brown. Amazingly, the group would later use Otis Redding, another Georgia singer, for the same role.)

Killed me when they finally got to the one physical activity that repulsed him and how John Lennon was its worst perpetrator.

his bowels ferried yields for richard

Any views on his early 70s Reprise recordings? Him trying to update his sound further etc.
I see that they've recently been reissued in expanded editions and had an earlier 3lps on 2cds version through BGO. I hadn't payed attention to that later era material by him before.
I know taht the Bo Diddley stuff from the same era has some interesting takes.

Do love the 50s material by him.

The good bits on those records are fantastic, but there are quite a few big misses as well. One of my projects is to cherry pick them and make one excellent album.

Good day for a revive of a Georgia native son.

Looking back on this thread, I'm surprised to realize it was only earlier in 2020 when he died. Feels like years ago.

yeah the reprise albums are all worth a listen. you can tell he was trying to go for something and didnt quite figure it out, but lots of hidden gems spread across those. i posted it somewhere else recently but one of my faves from that bunch is his soulful version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" from the King of Rock and Roll LP.

I think it was a coincidence, bringing this thread up like
., or at least in as much as I'd just read a review of various of teh lps in Ugly tHings last night in their reissue of a couple of months ago.
Hadn't realised there was a BGO release of these recordings until this morning, was hoping somebody would be able to run comparisons.
NOt sure if getting the lps together for a price roughly equivalent to each of the recent reissues makes sense, if I'm missing a stack of linernotes and photos or anything as well as the outtakes and single edits.

Anyway grabbed teh BGO this morning which will make a nice memorial for sanity prevailing.

Little Richard what an amazing force of energy though. Does punk all consciously refer back to him, probably not but do see him asa manifestation of that spirit for a certain time. Seems like there is a possible line running through him, the Sonics, pretty THings, Stooges and a few others , possibly Birthday Party too which is worth looking into. Bands taht fall upon it are worth checking out and all.
All about harnessing and releasing levels of energy and stuff.

Does punk all consciously refer back to him

A Marcus line I quoted above, referring to Grooviest 17 Original Hits!: "Anarchy in the U.S.A., about the time the Sex Pistols were born."

Forgot that one!

Got into The Rill Thing during last year's RIP. The choogle suits him!

When an interviewer asked him what he thought about punk, Sonny Sharrock said, "I saw Little Richard at the Apollo in 1956. You can't get more punk rock than that."
Haven't heard all the recent Omnivore reissues yet, but here's what I said about one of 'em last fall on What Are You Listening To?, later in comments on my Nashville Scene ballot:
notes just now, trying to wrap brane around what it just experienced:
Little Richard, Southern Child: omg, cert worth mention try to describe finely calibrated sense of pitch, sweetly piercing and sensitive, like Joplin’s "Summertime" all the time while rolling round on the farm vehicles and such, musos no prob as he makes something----something, not nec of nothing but working a few phrases not nec going anywhere but around and around earth and space certainly some robust to muscular phrases, whatever he does with them and voice very clear despite all the screaming he had done press sheet says label was like oh we don’t know about him doing country or was it just that it was so out there how compare to his other new records around then? seemed pretty out there in 70s Hendrix doc Sweet girlish laughter but unsettling as in high school wtf but no complaints after all Out Dec. 4 and always, I def relate him to Joplin at her most intense, also both of them as preceding, for instance, Robert Plant, Axl Rose, the Nazareth dude, and that whole school of pre-Cookie Monster screamy hard rock-to-metal vocals (as Ellen Willis pointed out about Joplin).

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81oe0e9cqIL._SL1500_.jp

yeah if you want to draw threads back from punk, no arguing that little richard is ground zero for the idea of playing rock songs as hard fast & loud as you can imo. on that complete specialty sessions set there are insane takes where theyre blasting through tunes in like 65 seconds.

I asked my friends about her
But all their lips was tight

“Shut up!”

my mom won me and my brother an expenses-paid trip to disneyworld to see superbowl 25. as we were checking out of the hotel we noticed little richard, who had played a pre-event party, checking out in the line next to us. we said hi and he was a sweetheart. he had one of his people give us some little religious texts.

tangentially related: here's a christgau fave from buffalo who named their band after superbowl 25:
http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=wide+right

So the beauty really was still on duty?

for 6:30 in the morning he was looking ok.

Turn on your fan, it’s just began.

I had my day and I had my say and I had my way! So, nay nay nay!

:)

Who's that girl on the cover with him? I thought Janis Martin, but (he don't look so little next to her) https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/21/alis-lesley-the-female-elvis-who-takes-centre-stage-on-bob-dylans-new-book-cover Good comments about cover overall at end.

Would you like to know where those quotes from me and TSF came from, dow?

https://waynerobins49.substack.com/p/lunch-with-little-richard-whoo?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

Deke Dickerson liked the new doc, I haven't seen it yet. Debuted in some theatres April 11, will hit streaming April 21 I think.

Hmm. It's playing at the Quad in NYC right now.