PART 1
Little Richard Penniman (1932 - 2020)
“I am a creator, emancipator, inventor, the king, originator, a beauty, the Bronze Liberace, original Georgia peach, a human atom bomb, international treasure, living flame and a Southern child.” Last paragraph of this link.
It ain't bragging when you're telling the truth.The man was a fearless showman, "out" and loud and proud before it was acceptable to acknowledge. Unapologetic. Makeup. Wild attire. Pompadour atop his head as formidable as the prow of an ocean liner.
A genius, extrovert and trail blazer on the national stage, Richard Penniman was totally certain of his destiny and willed it to become reality. His white audience (me included) had no clue what the lyrics of his songs meant. Like me, they were swept up with the rocket fueled energy whether on the radio or on 12 inch black and white TVs in the 1950s. His falsetto that punctuated his songs nearly punctuated the speakers on the radio turned up to maximum volume.
In the early1950s, Elvis was a meteor. Little Richard was a super nova.
Rhythm 'n Blues began to surface on the charts. "Race music" was not a feature of the two AM stations in my home town. Hell, it wasn't even a thing people discussed...all we knew was that radio stations in Troy, NY whose signal barely reached Pittsfield, MA spoke to our budding teenage energy and yearnings in the midst of puberty.
I listened to the music in my best friend's living room. All we knew was Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and The Comets, Buddy Holley and The Crickets. Then came Ray Charles, do wop music of the Penguins, Johnny Otis, The Coasters.
Tutti Frutti released in 1956 was the beginning of a Penniman tsunami.
His 1956 “Long Tall Sally, (the best-selling 45 in the in history of Specialty Records spotlighting Little Richard's distinctive boogie piano was recorded in New Orleans' famed J&M Studios of Cosimo Matassa).
Little Richard was the Big Bang that is still reverberating today.
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