I’ve seen Little Richard several not many time and while not LATE in his career, maybe 20 years ago, but that would still make him in his 60s, I was disappointment. Agewas catching up with the wild man and at around midnight at MSG (And I was in the front row mind) at a rock and roll revival with Jerry Lee about to follow, he seemed really tired.
Well, why wouldn’t he be? In the list of men with NOTHING TO PROVE, Little Richard is sky high on the list. One of the originals who taught everybody from McCartney on down how to scream, Macca covered “Long Tall Sally”. “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” is on Help of course.
Dressed in make up, tarnishing gender lines with “Long Tall Sally”, getting in the trouble with the law when you could get into more trouble being gay then being black, and thumping that piano around the world, he is legend.
Certainly, the gender busting, race busting rock and roll fire breathing, Afro wearing genius of rock and roll, worthy of mention in the same sentence as Jerry Lee, Elvis and Chuck Berry, the Gospel churning into hip movements and piano stomping, is about as good as it gets.
So the news that at the age of 80 Litle Richard is retiring makes me:
1. Feel my age
2. Feel a little relieved!
Little Richard told Rolling Stone: “I am done, in a sense, because I don’t feel like doing anything right now. I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business there wasn’t no such thing as rock’n’roll. When I started with Tutti Frutti, that’s when rock really started rocking.”
To put it mildly.
Little Richard is what makes America great. We won’t see his like again.