FEATURE: All Around the World: The Reaction to the Loss of the Mighty Little Richard

FEATURE:

 

All Around the World

xxxx.jpg

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Richard 1957/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs archives/Getty Images

The Reaction to the Loss of the Mighty Little Richard

___________

OVER the past few weeks…

xxx.jpg

IN THIS PHOTO: Little Richard in the mid-1950s/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

we have lost a lot of terrific musicians. It is very upsetting that we have to say goodbye to so many greats, but yesterday (9th May) was an extremely hard day – as the iconic Little Richard died the age of eighty-seven. Whilst he lived a full and rich life, his loss is still pretty hard to take. Rather than write my own reaction to the death, I wanted to look at how the media has responded. Before then, I will provide a little personal context. I was brought up on a lot of eclectic music, and I actually listened to a lot of music from the 1950s and 1960s when I was young. From The Tremeloes to The Everly Brothers, I was very interested in this older sound that was so different to anything around. I also discovered Little Richard when I was a child. I was not aware of his influence on artists like Elvis Presley and The Beatles; Little Richard’s incredible vocal prowess and captivating songs definitely moved me with their power and electricity. The Architect of Rock and Roll definitely left a huge mark on music and inspired some of the greatest artists ever seen. When news broke about Little Richard’s death, so many fans and musicians paid tribute and explained why they love Little Richard. In this feature, Slate had this to say:

“It was loud and it was blatant. The story of the original, raunchy lyrics of “Tutti Frutti” gets told over and over, as if adding or restoring the words “good booty” or “grease it” would prove something that wasn’t already there on the vinyl, as if the slippin’ and slidin’ and Bald-Headed Sally and the insinuating lisp at the start of “Send Me Some Lovin’” didn’t make it clear enough. The self-styled King and Queen of Rock and Roll was trying to be in a renunciatory phase by the ‘80s, but so was all of America. The contemporary pop charts were extremely queer and extremely closeted, to a degree that’s probably impossible to convey to anyone who grew up on the 21st century—such a degree that even if you were personally oriented toward heterosexuality and cis identity, it was impossible to shake the sense that everything the popular culture was saying about meaning and desire was confounding bullshit, meant to conceal.

Little Richard had already heard and lived the contradictions everyone was busily trying to ignore. He was joyously black under white tyranny, flamboyantly queer under straight tyranny, deeply God-troubled under the tyranny of secular commercial fame. It all came clattering and swaggering back out in fury and delight, in well under three minutes, if not two”.

Rolling Stone wrote an incredible article regarding Little Richard’s modest start and how, like so many iconic artists, he had to work his way up from quite a hard start in life; overcoming obstacles to grow into this hugely influential star. His music and stage persona was like nothing else; Little Richard inspired some massive artists:

“Although he never hit the Top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock & roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. “Elvis popularized [rock & roll],” Steven Van Zandt tweeted after the news broke. “Chuck Berry was the storyteller. Richard was the archetype.”

Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup, and glass-bead shirts — also set the standard for rock & roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989, before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”

The great Richard Penniman (Little Richard) will be remembered as one of the all-time great, and I don’t think his music is confined to certain generations. So many people of all ages expressed their grief yesterday, and it is amazing to think how wide his influence and magic reached. The Independent wrote an article that spoke about Little Richard’s life; how he had a turbulent start before going through a career change in the 1950s:

“The musician’s son, Danny Penniman, confirmed to Rolling Stone that Little Richard had died but said the cause of his death was unknown.

Born Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Georgia, in 1932, Little Richard was the second of 12 children. His father, Bud, kicked him out as a teenager; he was taken in by a white family, who ran the club where he first performed.

“My daddy wanted seven boys, and I had spoiled it, because I was gay,” he told The South Bank Show in 1985.

While the Fifties were widely considered as the most prolific and successful period of Little Richard’s career, his influence continued for decades after.

Little Richard attempted to pursue a career as a gospel artist in the late Fifties after seeing fireball crossing the sky (actually the Sputnik 1 satellite) and interpreting it as a sign from God that he needed to change his ways. He became a preacher in 1958 but returned to secular music in 1962; the tussle between God and “the devil’s music” would remain a theme in Little Richard’s work for the rest of his life.

While he stated he was gay on a number of occasions, Little Richard also had relationships with women. He married Ernestine Harvin, a fellow Evangelical, in 1959, and later adopted a son, Danny.

“When I first came along, I never heard any rock & roll,” he told Rolling Stone in a 1990 interview, during which he called himself the “architect” of rock and roll. “When I started singing [rock & roll], I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn’t like it. I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared.”

He was one of the first class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 1993”.

I think Little Richard’s unique persona and style had this profound on musicians that followed. Truly, there was nobody like him! One can draw a link between Prince and David Bowie to Little Richard in terms of their stage personas and flamboyance. Little Richard’s sexual force and scintillating delivery was irresistible to artists, as The Guardian explains:

“Of course, Richard Penniman’s sonic impact was only part of his outrageous long-term cultural impact. An erotic wild man, a drag queen, with a pencil moustache and pancake makeup, he had no predecessors; no one was about to confuse him with Dickie Valentine. Think how far beyond description Prince and Bowie seemed at their point of breakthrough, then think how Richard Penniman was doing much the same – and with greater extravagance – two to three decades earlier.

James Brown adored Little Richard, mimicked his scream and his rhythmic whoops, although Richard would be the first to defer to Brown’s dancing prowess. The sound and style of Otis Redding – the second most famous son of Macon, Georgia – owed Richard everything. Later, there would be Sly Stone, Bootsy Collins, Janelle Monáe. Beyond that, Slade’s breakthrough hit, Get Down and Get With It, was a cover of Richard’s UK-recorded 1967 single Get Down With It, and Noddy Holder’s voice was a direct descendant. Led Zeppelin took the thundering drum intro to Rock and Roll from Richard’s Keep A-Knockin’. Elton John was a shy member of Bluesology when they supported Richard at London’s Saville theatre in 1967 and saw the excitement generated by a peacock-plumaged star standing on top of a piano. When the Beatles supported Richard at the Tower Ballroom in the Merseyside resort of New Brighton in October 1962, he reportedly gave Paul McCartney tips on how to scream in tune; his advice would be put to good use on I’m Down, Hey Jude, Maybe I’m Amazed and other raucous Macca moments”.

I would suggest people read up on Little Richard, as I have only scratched the surface with the articles I have sourced from. It is interesting reading the different perspectives and how various journalists focus on something different about Little Richard – whether it was his sexuality, boldness or indelible songs. Every fan had their own reason for loving Little Richard. For me, it is the screams and the whoops; the joy and thrills one gets from listening to the music. From the swell of love that appeared on social media yesterday, it is clear the world of music owes so much to Little Richard; he truly changed the game:

“Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ringo Starr, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Page, Brian Wilson, Patti Smith, Carole King and Steven van Zandt were among musicians to pay tribute.

Bob Dylan wrote an impassioned series of tweets about the man he called “my shining star and guiding light back when I was only a little boy”.

zxx.jpg

 IN THIS PHOTO: Little Richard on stage in Paris in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images

“His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything I would do,” Dylan said. “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.”

Bryan Ferry, the lead singer of the art pop band Roxy Music, spoke for the sense of awe Richard inspired in many aspiring rockers when he gained fame in the late 1950s, telling the Guardian: “He hit me and the rest of my generation like a bolt of lightning.”

On social media, Jagger, 76, called Richard “the biggest inspiration of my early teens”, and said “his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid 50s.

Other musicians acknowledged his influence on the music that came in the wake of the rock’n’roll he played.

Joan Jett called him “the original glam rocker, and he took a lot of abuse for being in the first wave. He forged a path for all of us who followed.”

Some artists, meanwhile, tweeted about how Richard married them, in his second and perhaps at first glance unlikely career as a Christian minister.

“Maureen and I were so honored being the first marriage he conducted,” said Van Zandt. “We were lucky to know him. He lives forever in the Underground Garage.”

The singer Cyndi Lauper wrote: “So sad Little Richard passed away. He married my husband and I. He was really one of the truly great rock and roll singers and one of the rock and roll pioneers. He will be missed”.

I have ended this feature with a playlist of some of Little Richard’s greatest tracks – that I found on Spotify -, and it is hard to put into words what his absence means. His star will shine bright for decades more, but it is almost impossible to state just how important he was and how much influential he was. Whilst he did live to the ripe age of eighty-seven, it is still tragic that we have lost Little Richard. It is another hugely sad death in…

A year that has seen so many legends depart.

Sam Liddicott