little richard - C or D?

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.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YC8WUrWtZY

A sad but great line: "He was very, very good at liberating other people. He was not good at liberating himself."

Also, if you ever get the chance, definitely go see a screening of William Klein's The Little Richard Story. Klein was a great filmmaker and it's arguably his best (along with his movie on Muhammad Ali). Anthology Film Archives in NYC screened a 16mm print last year, which looked far better than the VHS rip that's floating around out there.

^word

https://spectrumculture.com/2023/04/12/little-richard-i-am-everything-review/

A review that says the doc didn’t quite explain how all of Little Richard’s different aspects fit together; but the review then notes that even those close to Richard couldn’t quite explain him

Terrifying to white parents, hero to millions!

...and fucking Pat Boone is still around. smh.

https://www.facebook.com/1591314471/posts/pfbid0Zw7Hk7NGa9zu8PadCCxxgAXwj6jQhSK8kdqjUX6hz23kuDNw2N5HBLjXY8JHqVb7l/?mibextid=cr9u03

Elijah Wald public Facebook post— he loves the doc and how it also shows Richard’s influence on Otis Redding , his gospel periods, his queerness, and he likes the guest speakers chosen to talk

Bono free?!

SHUT UP!

B-b-but has anyone weighed in on the question of whether the beauty is still on duty?

Tutti fruiti , beauty on duty

Saw the documentary at a rep theatre today. Thought it was good, not great. I knew of his one famous retreat back to the church during the late '50s, but didn't know he'd do it again a couple more times. His reaction to getting some lifetime achievement thing from Dick Clark is a good example, I think, of why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has value to older artists. (Little Richard missed his HOF induction because of a car accident, so the Clark thing took on added significance for him.) They missed the Geico commercial in the Little-Richard-in-the-culture collage near the end.

Hope to see this doc soon. Just realized the director is someone I used to know.

I saw the 2nd half of a doc on him on i think Sky Arts a couple of weeks back. Is that going to be the same one being talked about here a few months ago.
Thought it a pain id missed the beginning anyway.

It is streaming on channel 4 atm

Would have been 91 today. I was in a middle school, so was able to talk about him and play a clip for three different grade 7 classes. This is my fifth year of supplying since retiring. I think money is about 60% of why I keep going (even though I'm fortunate enough to not depend on it), 30% is that I'd go stir crazy if I didn't, and--not to flatter myself, but I really do feel this way--10% is that if I stop, no one will ever tell them about Little Richard.

Shut up!

(Sorry, couldn’t resist)

Preach on, brother!

Saw the "I Am Everything" docu recently, quite liked it - especially because a good portion of it is directly from Richard over the years.

FWIW, I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning Little Richard once when I was in school. I only learned about his music through the Beatles and as much as I love Little Richard now, I can’t imagine what else would have led me to his work - maybe the obituaries surrounding his death or maybe William Klein’s film, but that would mean many years later. (I didn’t see Klein’s film until sometime during the 2010s.)

John Waters maybe

aw, Little Richard was the first artist i really loved, along with James Brown maybe.

He had a big feature in the Life mag Dec 92 "40 years of rock n roll" special edition that i swiped from my grandfather. I got into music using that pub as a guide to the library's AV collection, which also featured lots of Richard.

i actually made my own Little Richard figurine out of polymer clay, since i couldn't find one in any stores.

Also wanted to say something about the beauty still being on duty

The doc is good