Little Richard was a true legend — there will never be another like him. I always can’t help thinking of this hilariously bonkers piece by John Waters about interviewing him:
“I was in this hotel and I had a Chrysler my mother had mortgaged her home to get me. I went into the studio anyway, and they had me singing like Ray Charles, BB King. They wanted me to sing the blues and that was not me. I got on the piano and started singing: 'Woooooo!' They said: 'Oh boy, where did you get that voice?' 'A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom!' and they said: 'That's a hit'… and the rest is history.”
Bonkers indeed. An interesting point of comparison is this "interview" with Prince, written over the course of months by the writer tapped to write his memoirs [1]. It seems that Prince and Little Richard both had an extravagant overflowing creative instinct that just...dazzled people. As someone whose personality tacks way more toward clear and consistent structured logic, it's interesting to see.
Having known people like this, I think it moves beyond instinct. They definitely have a more finely-tuned inborn sense of themselves and other people, for sure. But they also have developed a calculated and astute sense for what part of themselves to present to people provoke a particular emotional or behavioral response, and also the courage to present those parts (in Prince's case, occasionally quite literally and physically) when need be.
Having watched a few videos of tutti frutti I can smell that Prince loved Little Richard to bits.. there's an subtle yet uncanny similarity in stance and rawness.
I also enjoyed the short piece he wrote about himself for Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists Ever" list[0]. Oddly, he seems to be the only artist who wrote his own blurb, and his bitterness is palpable, but it's a fascinating perspective on what it must be like to look back on an incredibly influential life feeling like you didn't get appropriately rewarded.
That piece also has some very interesting videos of LR performing in the 50s. The manifest racial segregation in those videos was the norm at the time but seems truly shocking today, at least to me.
Little Richard didn't identify as gay, he was a deeply conflicted man and viewed his homosexual behavior as a problem. In an interview he lumped together both his penchant for gay sex and his love of angel dust(PCP) as his two biggest problems.
Another wonderful tiny slice of LR is when he's interviewed about Jimi Hendrix (search for "Little Richard on Jim Hendrix" on youtube - it's a very short video). I must have seen it 20 or 30 times as I was a Hendrix fan and it was on some VHS copy of a documentary on Hendrix I had at the time. In theory it's an incoherent mix of religiosity, homosexuality, flamboyance and almost narcissistic self-regard but for some reason on some level, it all seems to make perfect sense. I've just watched it again - having not seen it for 20+ years and I'm still smiling as I'm typing this.
"[Jimi Hendrix] was a star! When I got him, he was a star!"
Easy for Little Richard to say that after Hendrix blew up, but apparently the reason Hendrix quit LR's band was because the band hadn't gotten paid in five weeks. There's a letter from Hendrix that he wrote to his Dad from the road where he talks about this.
OTOH, LR's brother claimed that Hendrix was fired because ‘he was always late for the bus and flirting with all the girls and stuff like that.’ So who knows what the real story was there.
I think it's closer to the truth to say that Little Richard could not tolerate anyone else getting the spotlight and diminishing his star power, while Hendrix was too flamboyant himself to settle for being a sideman and already had his own original ideas and ambition to go solo.
There is no greater tribute than to have the architect of Rock and Roll sing your songs. Nothing Little Richard could say about Otis Redding could top that.
Went to a music festival in Memphis (2006) on the water and while walking up to our car a limo was driving by. The window rolled down and there he appeared waving to us... make up to the max and all.
Fun memory as my friend sweetly and surprised said, "Oh, hi Little Richard." Most of us didn't notice him until her greeting.
Perhaps my favorite Little Richard song is "Troubles of the World." It isn't your basic gospel, it has real passion and a kind of horror of the physical realm to it. The organ lurches around like a carousel horse as he sings of both wanting to escape the anguish of earthly life even as he looks forward to being reunited with his parents with all of the feel of revelation in a drunken moment. It was off of his second gospel album, a little break from the rock'n'roll, often attributed to some difficulties he had with a plane being a very sharp sign from God. It borders on the sacrilegious with the sound, but the hope to escape misery in his voice turns the sound into a repudiation of the world.
I'm not religious myself but I can feel what it must be like from the track, a sense that the man wanted to escape this swampy carnival with leering pitchmen even as you sense just how comfortable he is with the environment as a whole, how well he fits in. Salvation must have seemed as out of reach, like any brass ring, to a man lured by the money that came rolling in, flattered by the adulation, pampered by the lifestyle, and at ease with casual accommodation of his apparently voracious (and omnivorous) sexuality. Being a lot further to one side of the Kinsey scale than the other must have been another layer on the leaden robe, however gilt, as he struggled to heed the call.
He would of course go back to rock'n'roll. Like Willie Sutton said, that's where the money is. And it's hard to argue with a paycheck, even as unsteady as they are when they're royalties from the record business.
"With a six-inch pompadour, brocaded shirts, rhinestone shades, and a rhythmic, belligerent style of piano playing, Esquerita was the original Little Richard, years before Mr. Penniman tutti-frutti'd his way to stardom. Working around the Dallas-New Orleans circuit in the early '50s...
1. I have two email addies- one I Never post online, one throwaway I check once a month to keep it alive.
2. Anything I post on HN is free (until the ads show up)
3. Love that Schulz quote. (What a sad story that is.)
Wow, thank you, I'd never heard of him. "A bit of a proto-Little-Richard" seems a huge understatement. It seems Little Richard copied Esquerita's style. And Esquerita's look and sound on his youtube videos certainly supports that! e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUF81FcZHMA From that wikipedia page:
"Reeder has been cited as a key early influence on Little Richard ... his look and style were in a very similar vein, although Esquerita was much more flamboyant in the 1950s and his music played more wildly than the contemporary music of Little Richard. Reeder did not record until after Little Richard's initial early 1950s recordings for the RCA and Peacock labels and the later hits on Specialty. However, early Little Richard recordings made at WGST Radio Station in Atlanta do not show the style that was to make him famous. According to Richard, Esquerita did influence him and taught him to play the piano. In an interview...in 1988...Richard states that he saw Esquerita getting off a bus at the Macon, GA Greyhound bus station, but doesn't say which year, presumably in the early 1950s. There's a hint of a sexual connection between the two, but Richard also states that he was inspired by Reeder, and moreover, Reeder was inspired by Richard to go into show business.
Little Richard also had not intended to use what came to be his (and Esquerita's) characteristic style during his first New Orleans session for Specialty Records. The session producer, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell had been unhappy with Penniman's initial songs on the session, so, taking a break from recording, he went with Richard to a local cafe, where Richard jumped on a piano and began singing an X-rated version of "Tutti Frutti", in true Esquerita fashion. Blackwell felt that a cleaned-up version of the song with the same style of presentation would be just what his boss Art Rupe was looking for, and this song launched Little Richard's career in 1955.
I saw little Richard live in the mid 90s when I was a teenager and he is to this day one of the best live performances I’ve seen. He said at some point that he had an opportunity to invest in the Beatles in the late 50s but declined because he thought they were too closely copying him to succeed.
>I’m struggling to figure out how this is news that a hacker would find interesting. I certainly don’t.
I'm struggling to find how this type of comment is considered interesting. HN is a social voting site for startup guys and hacker types. If enough users upvote a story within some time frame (and nothing more involved happens with the moderation), it goes to the front page. Simple as that, and has been discussed at least a hundred times.
So whether someone can "figure" why hackers would find this news interesting or not, hackers did find it interesting and upvoted it.
And why not? Hackers are not one-dimensional computer geeks. They have curiosity, they care for music, they care for pop culture (not to mention movies, comics, etc), they care for games, they care for science, they care for a thousand things...
It's also not about the fact that some "celebrity died".
Little Richard for starters is hardly a current celebrity. Obvious as his figure is to oldsters, most 20- 30-somethings today would't even know about him, except in encyclopedical terms ("some old rock n' roll guy from the fifties?") - if that.
He is celebrated by those who know about him not because of some contemporary popularity, but for what he did 65-70 years ago. Which included significant contributions to pop culture, rock music, gay representation, and other things besides. Things hackers can, and apparently do, find interesting.
Kobe Bryant’s death submission was flagged immediately from this site, so OP has a point. There’s nothing more hostile or controversial on this site than who is allowed to have their obit stay on HN.
Is it hard to understand that people here apparently care much less about some athlete who plays a rather US-centric game of sportsball than they do about a Rock 'n Roll 'icon'?
Also, keep in mind that flagging a submission is often not meant as anything more than a downvote. Whether that's appropriate or not, that's what happens.
IIRC I didn't downvote Kobe's death post(s) myself, but that was purely because I was curious to read theories about what happened with the helicopter. That's how little I care about that guy. At the same time, I know very little about Litle John, uh, Richard, but I've just spent a good hour watching videos and reading articles, because I do care about Rock 'n Roll! Your whining aside, this submission was well worth my upvote.
Honest Answer- For better or worse, 'Disruption' is the mantra of the Valley. The entire zeitgeist is focused on enabling/creating the next Sea Change.
That's what Little Richard did. When he claimed that everyone that came after, copied him, he was right. He showed what was possible in a way that no one else could even conceive. The slack-jawed response from AC/DC's vocalist? Yeah, that was everyone.
I mean, I personally don't even particularly like his music, but I absolutely can acknowledge what he did, and just how unique his contributions were. I think his death is absolutely worthy of note on a site like this one.
Not only was he an accomplished entertainer, he was a business person. His personal style and branding were very effective. Some of the other comments in this thread reveal that and are very interesting reads.
A lot of people who came up in the 80s as 90s (when he returned after his hiatus) saw him as a kooky famous for being famous musical celebrity, and had no idea the amazing reason why he was so beloved and sought after by the adults making movies and records.
60 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 98.3 ms ] threadhttps://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/28/john-waters-me...
“I was in this hotel and I had a Chrysler my mother had mortgaged her home to get me. I went into the studio anyway, and they had me singing like Ray Charles, BB King. They wanted me to sing the blues and that was not me. I got on the piano and started singing: 'Woooooo!' They said: 'Oh boy, where did you get that voice?' 'A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom!' and they said: 'That's a hit'… and the rest is history.”
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/the-book-of-pr...
Thanks for the link also
When in reality, as with everyone, the majority worked their asses off and honed their craft.
That it seemed effortless is a testiment to their practice, not their innate nature.
[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-...
Absolute legend. The world has lost a singular titan connecting multiple generations of flamboyant pop music excellence.
It’s a mess, in a good way. It’s unorganized. Richard talks more about himself, but it works and it’s pure Rock and Roll. RIP. He was a pioneer.
Seriously, watch the first minute. It’s beautiful. https://youtu.be/YUvHBirr1PI
To wake up a room as stodgy and boring as the rock and roll HOF is no easy task, not to mention having the balls to even attempt it.
Thanks for sharing that!
LOL
RIP sir.
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7990551/richard-sexu...
That piece also has some very interesting videos of LR performing in the 50s. The manifest racial segregation in those videos was the norm at the time but seems truly shocking today, at least to me.
He was a drag performer earlier in his career, too.
"That time that he used to make my big toe shoot up into my boot!"
Wow.
His freaky look gave Jimmy Hendrix confidence.
Easy for Little Richard to say that after Hendrix blew up, but apparently the reason Hendrix quit LR's band was because the band hadn't gotten paid in five weeks. There's a letter from Hendrix that he wrote to his Dad from the road where he talks about this.
OTOH, LR's brother claimed that Hendrix was fired because ‘he was always late for the bus and flirting with all the girls and stuff like that.’ So who knows what the real story was there.
I think it's closer to the truth to say that Little Richard could not tolerate anyone else getting the spotlight and diminishing his star power, while Hendrix was too flamboyant himself to settle for being a sideman and already had his own original ideas and ambition to go solo.
Fun memory as my friend sweetly and surprised said, "Oh, hi Little Richard." Most of us didn't notice him until her greeting.
I first heard Little Richard in the opening chopper sequence from the original Predator. What a great scene!
I'm not religious myself but I can feel what it must be like from the track, a sense that the man wanted to escape this swampy carnival with leering pitchmen even as you sense just how comfortable he is with the environment as a whole, how well he fits in. Salvation must have seemed as out of reach, like any brass ring, to a man lured by the money that came rolling in, flattered by the adulation, pampered by the lifestyle, and at ease with casual accommodation of his apparently voracious (and omnivorous) sexuality. Being a lot further to one side of the Kinsey scale than the other must have been another layer on the leaden robe, however gilt, as he struggled to heed the call.
He would of course go back to rock'n'roll. Like Willie Sutton said, that's where the money is. And it's hard to argue with a paycheck, even as unsteady as they are when they're royalties from the record business.
Little Richard was already doing pop in 1952, and had Tutti Frutti become a hit in 1955.
"With a six-inch pompadour, brocaded shirts, rhinestone shades, and a rhythmic, belligerent style of piano playing, Esquerita was the original Little Richard, years before Mr. Penniman tutti-frutti'd his way to stardom. Working around the Dallas-New Orleans circuit in the early '50s...
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/esquerita-mn0000198922/biogr...
Sample Esquerita; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUF81FcZHMA
"Reeder has been cited as a key early influence on Little Richard ... his look and style were in a very similar vein, although Esquerita was much more flamboyant in the 1950s and his music played more wildly than the contemporary music of Little Richard. Reeder did not record until after Little Richard's initial early 1950s recordings for the RCA and Peacock labels and the later hits on Specialty. However, early Little Richard recordings made at WGST Radio Station in Atlanta do not show the style that was to make him famous. According to Richard, Esquerita did influence him and taught him to play the piano. In an interview...in 1988...Richard states that he saw Esquerita getting off a bus at the Macon, GA Greyhound bus station, but doesn't say which year, presumably in the early 1950s. There's a hint of a sexual connection between the two, but Richard also states that he was inspired by Reeder, and moreover, Reeder was inspired by Richard to go into show business.
Little Richard also had not intended to use what came to be his (and Esquerita's) characteristic style during his first New Orleans session for Specialty Records. The session producer, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell had been unhappy with Penniman's initial songs on the session, so, taking a break from recording, he went with Richard to a local cafe, where Richard jumped on a piano and began singing an X-rated version of "Tutti Frutti", in true Esquerita fashion. Blackwell felt that a cleaned-up version of the song with the same style of presentation would be just what his boss Art Rupe was looking for, and this song launched Little Richard's career in 1955.
Little Richard - Thinkin' About My Mother (Take A)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13ZlB63K8Dw
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Celebrity death news is banal. If there has never been a front page article about someone’s lived actions, we should not have one upon their death.
I'm struggling to find how this type of comment is considered interesting. HN is a social voting site for startup guys and hacker types. If enough users upvote a story within some time frame (and nothing more involved happens with the moderation), it goes to the front page. Simple as that, and has been discussed at least a hundred times.
So whether someone can "figure" why hackers would find this news interesting or not, hackers did find it interesting and upvoted it.
And why not? Hackers are not one-dimensional computer geeks. They have curiosity, they care for music, they care for pop culture (not to mention movies, comics, etc), they care for games, they care for science, they care for a thousand things...
It's also not about the fact that some "celebrity died".
Little Richard for starters is hardly a current celebrity. Obvious as his figure is to oldsters, most 20- 30-somethings today would't even know about him, except in encyclopedical terms ("some old rock n' roll guy from the fifties?") - if that.
He is celebrated by those who know about him not because of some contemporary popularity, but for what he did 65-70 years ago. Which included significant contributions to pop culture, rock music, gay representation, and other things besides. Things hackers can, and apparently do, find interesting.
Also, keep in mind that flagging a submission is often not meant as anything more than a downvote. Whether that's appropriate or not, that's what happens.
IIRC I didn't downvote Kobe's death post(s) myself, but that was purely because I was curious to read theories about what happened with the helicopter. That's how little I care about that guy. At the same time, I know very little about Litle John, uh, Richard, but I've just spent a good hour watching videos and reading articles, because I do care about Rock 'n Roll! Your whining aside, this submission was well worth my upvote.
Must have been somewhat interesting if you decided to write a few paragraphs in response.
> HN is a social voting site for startup guys and hacker types.
Nope. It's for one or the either. Not both. It was never for the latter and frankly, it's less and less about about the former.
> Things hackers can, and apparently do, find interesting.
Right and "hackers" can question it as well.
I found both you and the parent interesting in your own little ways.
That's what Little Richard did. When he claimed that everyone that came after, copied him, he was right. He showed what was possible in a way that no one else could even conceive. The slack-jawed response from AC/DC's vocalist? Yeah, that was everyone.
I mean, I personally don't even particularly like his music, but I absolutely can acknowledge what he did, and just how unique his contributions were. I think his death is absolutely worthy of note on a site like this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMzX72GOOEQ
It's said that's Hendrix on guitar.