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A review by pivic
The Big Life of Little Richard by Mark Ribowsky
4.0
Little Richard didn't—as opposed to what he claimed—invent rock 'n' roll, but he undoubtedly shaped it in a major way and made it dangerous.
People came before him, like Fats Domino, but they were non-threatening. Little Richard hit the US of A like a hurricane.
A self-professed omnisexual, natural rhythm machine, creator of 'Tutti Frutti' and countless other rock 'n' roll anthems, this man carried a vocal style that killed, having learned it from the churches he attended growing up. His hair was inches high. He dressed like Liberace decades before he came along.
All of this in the face of abject racism where he faced death and whitewashing:
Ribowsky has written a lovely book that's almost as alive as Little Richard's persona and music was, which is quite a feat:
Remember, he released 'Tutti Frutti' in 1955:
This book is filled with anecdotes and does, like Little Richard's life, go into a twilight phase nearly half-way in, but not in a bad way. Ribowsky has managed to write a lively, fiercely entertaining, non-stop rollicking book that celebrates Little Richard as the innovator that he was, and, truly, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.
People came before him, like Fats Domino, but they were non-threatening. Little Richard hit the US of A like a hurricane.
A self-professed omnisexual, natural rhythm machine, creator of 'Tutti Frutti' and countless other rock 'n' roll anthems, this man carried a vocal style that killed, having learned it from the churches he attended growing up. His hair was inches high. He dressed like Liberace decades before he came along.
All of this in the face of abject racism where he faced death and whitewashing:
“I used to get beaten up for nothing,” he once said. “Slapped in my face with sticks. The police used to stop me and make me wash my face. I always tried to not let it bother me. We could stay in no hotels and go to no toilets. I went to the bathroom behind a tree. I slept in my car. I knew there was a better way and that the King of Kings would show it to me. I was God’s child. I knew God would open that door.”
Ribowsky has written a lovely book that's almost as alive as Little Richard's persona and music was, which is quite a feat:
[He] was brash, fast and bombastic . . . . He wore a baggy suit with elephant trousers, 26 inches at the bottoms, and he had his hair back-combed in a monstrous plume like a fountain. Then he had a little toothbrush moustache and a round, totally ecstatic face. He’d scream and scream and scream. He had a freak voice, tireless, hysterical, completely indestructible, and he never in his life sang at anything lower than an enraged bull-like roar. On every phrase he’d embroider with squeals, rasps, siren whoops. His stamina, his drive were limitless and his songs were mostly non-songs, nothing but bedrock twelve-bars with playroom lyrics, but he’d still put them across as if every last syllable was liquid gold. —NIK COHN, Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock
Remember, he released 'Tutti Frutti' in 1955:
Both he and Richard felt deflated as they and Lee Allen retreated to an in-crowd club called the Dew Drop Inn to drink away the blues and find a new groove. As it happened, it would come as if riding a lightning bolt. At the Dew Drop, Richard lost whatever inhibition he had. Getting up on the stage, in his element as bar-goers crowded in front of him, he sat at a piano—or rather, stood above it—and launched into a song he had been performing live for months, but never figured would be acceptable for recording. The first sounds of it were those beguiling syllables that came out as Awop bop a loo mop a good goddamn / Tutti Frutti, good booty.
This, the original parlance of “Tutti Frutti,” had entered his head back where he worked in the kitchen at the Macon Greyhound station during a misspent youth, giggling to himself as he wrote the leering lines about “good booty” and “If it don’t fit don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy.” Up on a stage, he paid no mind to good taste. He just let it rip. And as he did that, Blackwell was astonished. It was as if the song liberated Richard from the circumspect Richard in the studio. He had swagger, bark and bite, his joy and his growl emanating from a place deep in his soul. He was a different breed of cat, claws out, answerable to any standard of R&B, only himself, with not a compromise in sight.
This book is filled with anecdotes and does, like Little Richard's life, go into a twilight phase nearly half-way in, but not in a bad way. Ribowsky has managed to write a lively, fiercely entertaining, non-stop rollicking book that celebrates Little Richard as the innovator that he was, and, truly, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.