Here's Little Richard

Here's Little Richard
Little Richard's studio album
Publication (s)	March 1957
admission	September 1955 to October 1956
Label (s)	Specialty Records
Format (s)	LP
Genre (s)	Rock and roll
Title (number)	12
running time	28 min 30 s
occupation	New Orleans: ( The Studio Band ) Singing / piano: Little Richard Guitar: Justin Adams Guitar: Edgar Blanchard Guitar: Roy Montrell Drums: Earl Palmer Bass: Frank Fields Tenor saxophone: Lee Allen Baritone saxophone: Alvin Tyler Hollywood: ( Guitar Slims Band) Singing / piano: Little Richard Guitar: William Pyles Drums: Oscar Moore Bass: Lloyd Lambert Tenor saxophone: Joseph Tillman Baritone saxophone: Clarence Ford Trumpet: Renald Richards Los Angeles: ( The Upsetters ) Singing / piano: Little Richard Guitar: Nathaniel Douglas Drums: Charles Connor Bass: Olsie Robinson Tenor saxophone: Clifford Burks Tenor saxophone: Lee Diamond Tenor saxophone: Grady Gaines Baritone saxophone: Jewell Grant
production	Bumps Blackwell (New Orleans) Art Rupe (Los Angeles)
Studio (s)	J&M Studio , New Orleans Radio Recorders , Hollywood Master Recorders , Los Angeles
chronology - Here's Little Richard Little Richard (1958)

Here's Little Richard is the debut album by Little Richard in 1957 and unites several hit singles of the two before last year for Specialty Records . In terms of content, structure, rhythm, instrumentalization and performance, the titles in New Orleans Sound are among the first rock 'n' roll songs and, due to their great popularity, help with the entry of the black rhythm and blues of the southern states into the mainstream - Rock 'n' roll.

Music genre

Little Richard is one of the rock 'n' roll pioneers from the very beginning. His debut album demonstrates his musical roots in rhythm & blues, as well as the wildness, rhythm and content of the new musical movement of rock 'n' roll. All twelve songs are based on the twelve-measure blues scheme , which consists of the three main functions of harmony. While Can't Believe You Wanna Leave , Baby , Miss Ann and Oh Why? are slower and therefore more bluesy numbers, the other pieces approach a driving up tempo .

Little Richard knows triplet piano playing from the New Orleans Sound , whose swinging drive he replaces in the faster pieces with a loud, rocking 4/4 time. Earl Palmer sometimes plays a shuffle on the drums , but mostly a strict backbeat . This interplay of piano, drums and the bass line adopted from boogie-woogie add up to a rockbeat. All in all, the result is quite simply structured songs that meet the requirements of rock 'n' roll due to Little Richard's over-the-top vocals. The prominently used wooden section, which also contributes saxophone solos, refers to the rhythm and blues that were popular in the southern states of the USA in the mid-1950s.

The texts deal with intersex issues throughout.

History of origin

After his first moderately successful releases on singles for RCA Records (1952) and Peacock Records (1953), Little Richard sent demo recordings to Art Rupe's label Specialty Records in Los Angeles on a recommendation from Lloyd Price . Bumps Blackwell , the producer and A&R manager at Specialty, then hired Cosimo Matassa's prominent studio band , which was joined by blues performer Huey “Piano” Smith , in Cosimo Matassa's J&M studio in New Orleans September 1955 some bluesy numbers with Richard. The recordings were unsatisfactory for the producers, until Little Richard showed his own composition on the piano during a recording break: Tutti Frutti was the wanted hit (after Dorothy La Bostrie had defused the slippery text ). On this last track of the session, Richard played the piano part himself.

The following recording session at Radio Recorders Studios in Hollywood on November 29, 1955, when Guitar Slims Band played, resulted in Baby and True Fine Mama , the latter with background vocals.

Richard's third session for Specialty Records on February 10, 1956 took place again in New Orleans and produced some classics of the genre with Slippin 'And Slidin' , Long Tall Sally and Miss Ann . Rip It Up and Ready Teddy followed in May . The staff was again the house combo of the J & M studio, only Justin Adams was replaced on guitar by Edgar Blanchard , who in turn was replaced for the fifth session in July / August by Roy Montrell , who wrote the titles Oh Why and Can't Believe You Wanna Leave accompanied.

For the sixth recording session for Specialty in the Master Recorders Studios in Los Angeles on September 6, 1956, Little Richard, who had meanwhile become successful in the singles charts, put his live band The Upsetters through as accompaniment, which he played with the previous studio band around Earl Palmer , Frank Fields , Lee Allen, and Alvin "Red" Tyler considered their equals. The songwriter John Marascalco contributed a catchy text to Richard's I Got It , which appears as She's Got It in the track list.

Jenny Jenny is Little Richard's seventh specialty studio appointment on October 15, 1956 and completes the album. The band matched the previous line-up in New Orleans.

Here's Little Richard is therefore not an album that was conceptually and with regard to the recording practice created as a uniform work, but only re- markets half of already published and successful single hits on the larger medium long-playing record . The other six titles were released on single and EP after the LP at loose intervals .

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Here's Little Richard   US 13 08/05/1957 (5 weeks)

Singles

Tutti Frutti   R&B 2 11/26/1955 (21 weeks)   US 17th 01/14/1956 (12 weeks)   UK 29 02/28/1957 (1 week) Long Tall Sally   R&B 1 04/07/1956 (16 weeks)   US 6th 04/07/1956 (19 weeks)   UK 3 02/14/1957 (16 weeks) Ready teddy   R&B 8th 06/30/1956 (8 weeks)   US 44 07/07/1956 (8 weeks) Rip It Up   R&B 1 06/30/1956 (17 weeks)   US 17th 07/07/1956 (18 weeks)   UK 30th December 20, 1956 (1 week) Jenny Jenny   R&B 2 06/17/1957 (12 weeks)   US 10 06/17/1957 (20 weeks)   UK 11 09/19/1957 (5 weeks) Miss Ann   R&B 6th 06/24/1957 (9 weeks)   US 56 07/06/1957 (10 weeks) True Fine Mama   R&B 15th 06/30/1958 (4 weeks)   US 68 06/30/1958 (3 weeks) She's got it   UK 15th 03/14/1957 (9 weeks)

Track list

Page 1:

1. Tutti Frutti ( Dorothy La Bostrie , Richard Penniman , Robert Blackwell ) - 2:25 (New Orleans)
2. True Fine Mama (Richard Penniman) - 2:43 (Hollywood)
3. Can't Believe You Wanna Leave ( Leo Price ) - 2:28 (New Orleans)
4. Ready Teddy (Robert Blackwell, John Marascalco ) - 2:09 (New Orleans)
5. Baby (Richard Penniman) - 2:06 (Hollywood)
6. Slippin 'and Slidin' (Peepin 'and Hidin') (Richard Penniman, Eddie Bocage , John Collins, Al Smith) - 2:42 (New Orleans)

Page 2:

1. Long Tall Sally ( Enotris Johnson , Robert Blackwell, Richard Penniman) - 2:10 (New Orleans)
2. Miss Ann (Richard Penniman, Enotris Johnson) - 2:17 (New Orleans)
3. Oh why? (Winfield Scott) - 2:09 (New Orleans)
4. Rip It Up (Robert Blackwell, John Marascalco) - 2:23 (New Orleans)
5. Jenny, Jenny (Enotris Johnson, Richard Penniman) - 2:04 (New Orleans)
6. She's Got It (John Marascalco, Richard Penniman) - 2:26 (Los Angeles)

Publications and chart successes

Here's Little Richard was the first LP from Specialty Records ever to appear under the number 100 in March 1957. Shortly afterwards, a new counting method was introduced, so that the subsequent editions were numbered 2100. Since then, the successful record has been re-released many times on vinyl and CD in various countries.

The singles underlying the album are Specialty 561 with Tutti Frutti from October 1955, Specialty 572 with Long Tall Sally and Slippin 'And Slidin' from March 1956, Specialty 579 with Rip It Up and Ready Teddy from June 1956, and Specialty 584 with She's Got It from October 1956.

Specialty 606 with Jenny Jenny and Miss Ann from June 1957 and Specialty 611 with Can't Believe You Wanna Leave from August of the same year can be described as subsequent single releases . In May 1958 and August 1959, Specialty 633 with True Fine Mama and Specialty 681 with baby followed, at a time when Little Richard had already (temporarily) left the rock 'n' roll business in favor of priestly training. Oh why? came out on the single Specialty 734 in September 1983.

Some of the singles were very successful in the black rhythm & blues charts and delivered number 1 hits, while they were noticed in the clientele of the independent pop market in the USA , but fared worse. The LP, however, reached a very good thirteenth place in the general Billboard pop charts, making it Little Richards' most successful album.

The early rock 'n' roll hits Little Richards can be described as classics of the genre due to their sustained popularity, which were covered both by the white pop market and by young rhythm and blues bands during the British invasion . Especially Tutti Frutti , Ready Teddy , Long Tall Sally , Rip It Up and Jenny Jenny have been covered many times, so that the album combines some evergreens.

Retrospective shows also consider the album to be a milestone: the music magazine Rolling Stone lists Here's Little Richard in its 50th place in its popular list of the 500 best albums of all time . Robert Dimery considers the album to be one of the 1001 albums You Must Hear Before You Die (German: 1001 albums that you must have heard before your death ).

literature

• Tony Scherman: Backbeat. Earl Palmer's Story . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington / London 1999, ISBN 1-56098-844-4 .
• Charles White: The Life And Times Of Little Richard. The Authorized Biography . Omnibus Press, London / New York / Paris / Sydney / Copenhagen / Berlin / Madrid / Tokyo 2003 [1984], ISBN 0-7119-9761-6 .

Web links

• Marc Deming: Review at Allmusic

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paul McCartney in the foreword to Charles White: The Life and Times of Little Richard. The Authorized Biography. S. ix
2. ↑ Tony Scherman: Backbeat. Earl Palmer's Story. P. 91
3. ^ Charles White. P. 49ff
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Charles White. P. 239ff
5. ^ Charles White. P. 75ff
6. ↑ Charts UK Charts US
7. ↑ Specialty Records album discography , on Both Sides Now, accessed December 5, 2007
8. ↑ Discography Specialty Records, on Wang Dang Dula! Retrieved November 30, 2007
9. ↑ cover database of Coverinfo.de, accessed December 5, 2007; see also: Joe Levy (Ed.): Rolling Stone. The 500 best albums of all time . (Original edition: Rolling Stone. The 500 Greatest Albums of all Time . Wenner Media 2005). Translation: Karin Hofmann. White Star Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 68
10. ↑ List of the 500 best music albums of all time. (No longer available online.) In: Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on June 23, 2008 ; accessed on October 14, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.