Little Richard
57 articles
Free articles
Little Richard: Lewisham Odeon, London
Live Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 12 July 1975
THE DEBUT DATE of Little Richard's UK tour at the half empty Lewisham Odeon was little short of a disaster. Possibly the person least to ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Joel Selvin, Rock's Backpages audio, November 1969
The Bronze Liberace looks back at songs like 'Tutti Frutti' and 'Good Golly Miss Molly'; the Beatles' cover of 'Long Tall Sally'; recording in New Orleans; Miss Ann Johnson and her Tik Tok club in Macon, Ga.; touring in the '50s and his outrageous stage act; appearing in movies such as The Girl Can't Help It; finding God in '57; returning to rock'n'roll in '62 and befriending the Beatles; on why young black audiences aren't interested in him; the Black Panthers, Black Muslims and racism, and his long experiences of police harassment...
File format: mp3; file size: 36.5mb, interview length: 38' 04" sound quality: **
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 5 March 1985
Little Richard on the demonic nature of Rock'n'Roll of which, nonetheless, he is King; on how he came out of the American South; on Otis Redding and much more. Hear him sing!
File format: mp3 File size: 50.3mb Interview length: 52' 23", sound quality: ****
Interview by Roy Trakin, Rock's Backpages audio, 18 November 1987
Little Richard, on the 'phone, talks about race, religion, Good Works, the original giants of rock'n'roll, and Prince and Michael Jackson
File format: mp3 File size: 20.3mb Interview length: 22 minutes 13 seconds Sound quality: **
List of articles in the library
Well, look who's back — it's Little Richard
Profile and Interview by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 6 October 1962
BOBOBALOOMBA Abimbamboom all Rootti Tutti Frutti. With this gnomic verse about ice-cream and a shriek of masochistic ecstasy, Little Richard exploded before a wondering world ...
Little Richard: Gaumont Theatre, Watford
Live Review by June Harris, Disc, 12 October 1963
RICHARD IS DYNAMIC ...
Little Richard, Duane Eddy, The Shirelles: The Regal, Edmonton, London
Live Review by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 16 November 1963
THE OPENING night of the Duane Eddy/Little Richard/Shirelles tour was a lot better than most people expected at the Regal Edmonton, 2nd performance on Saturday. ...
Little Richard: A Living Legend In His Time
Interview by Eden, KRLA Beat, 28 May 1966
"THEY'RE THE greatest guys I ever worked with in my life... they're down to earth! People haven't really heard the Beatles yet. They are one ...
Joe Tex, Little Richard, Robert Parker, the Isley Brothers et al: the Village Theater, New York NY
Live Review by Robert Shelton, The New York Times, 15 August 1966
KEY TO THE BLUES IS SHOWMANSHIP Dancing and Costumes Add Dash to 30 Singing Acts ...
Review by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 19 November 1966
The stars single out the new singles ...
Little Richard: Saville Theatre, London
Live Review by Bill Millar, Soul Music Monthly, March 1967
Little Richard has recently achieved considerable publicity and one may assume that Brian Epstein nudged the Press and ITV into action. However it was caused, ...
Little Richard: The Explosive Little Richard (OKeh 14117)
Review by Jim Payne, Crawdaddy!, May 1967
Little Richard: Ripping it up, Past and Present ...
20 Revolutionary Singles, as requested
Letter by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 28 October 1968
25 FLORENCE TERRACE, FALMOUTH, CORNWALL TELEPHONE: FALMOUTH 1840 23rd October 1968 ...
Little Richard: Schaefer Music Festival, Central Park, New York NY
Live Review by Mike Jahn, New York Post, 7 August 1969
Little Richard Rouses Crowd At Central Park Rock Concert ...
"He's Forgotten Me" — Little Richard Raps James Brown
Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 2 September 1969
LITTLE RICHARD is coming to Detroit along with Jerry Lee Lewis. They'll be at Cobo Hall Sept. 6. ...
Interview by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, 28 May 1970
I DIDN'T GET to see Little Richard at the Atlantic City Pop Festival where he followed Janis Joplin and revived his own legend, but when ...
Little Richard: The Rill Thing
Review by Joel Selvin, Rolling Stone, 17 September 1970
AS INCREDIBLE AS IT may seem, Little Richard is as great as he says he is. His new album, the first in three years, is ...
Little Richard: Music Hall Theater, Detroit MI
Live Review by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 9 November 1970
150 See Little Richard: Music Hall No 'Apollo' Yet ...
Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 21 November 1970
'Bronze Liberace' Has Some Unusual Ideas About the State of Music — and the World ...
Little Richard: Electric Circus, New York NY
Live Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 January 1971
ST MARK'S PLACE, the high street of New York's East Village, hums with memories these days. Among them, at the new year, was little Richard, ...
Little Richard Takes El's Advice
Report by David Dalton, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971
CLEVELAND – "I'm going to tell Elvis what you did for me, hear?" Richard whispers to the stewardess as she leans over to deposit two ...
Albums from Paul McCartney, Little Richard and Carole King
Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 21 May 1971
THERE IS NO way to make great rock music from retirement. Paul McCartney may have been seduced — by reading that he's equalled Schubert — ...
Little Richard: King Of Rock 'n' Roll/Various Artists: This Is How It All Began
Review by Roger St. Pierre, New Musical Express, 25 December 1971
PERHAPS IT'S just that I'm a bit too fussy, but basically I don't like going to see live gigs of the artists I admire. Too ...
Little Richard: What Richard Said
Report by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 12 August 1972
"UH, HOWdo you do. Mr. Penniman, it's a great..." "HALLELUJAH BROTHER it's great to be here in your wunnerful country. I want y'all to know ...
Little Richard: The Georgia Peach
Report and Interview by Andrew Tyler, Disc, 19 August 1972
OOOWEE, Lawd knows it was a bad night's work. According to the divine plan, the Wembley crowd should have been blowing kisses at the Georgia ...
Keep On Rockin': Interview with film director D. A. Pennebaker
Report and Interview by John Pidgeon, New Musical Express, 30 September 1972
KEEP ON ROCKIN' is in town, and so is the rock film revolutionary who created this celluloid spectacle of Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck ...
Little Richard: A Bizarre Interview With The Amazing, Self-Styled King Of Rock 'N' Roll
Interview by Danny Holloway, New Musical Express, 18 November 1972
HE CALLS HIMSELF the Georgia Peach, the Bronze Liberace and the King of Rock and Roll. Little Richard calls himself a lot of things. Some ...
Little Richard's Big Troubles, Part 1
Live Review by Ed Jones, Melody Maker, 28 June 1975
Part 1: Lewisham "TURN THE BAND DOWN!" bawls a lady who may have been a teenager in the '50s. "Turn the bloody band down!" This, and ...
Little Richard's Big Troubles, Part 2
Report and Interview by Ed Jones, Melody Maker, 5 July 1975
Part 2: Dunstable & the European Saga "IT'S NICE TO LET THEM KNOW that you are not IN THE WAY, that you ARE THE WAY, that ...
Is This the Start of A WOPBOPALOOBOPALOPBAM BOOM?
Report and Interview by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 30 July 1977
(Or... will the real Little Richard please stand up) ...
Little Richard: Little Richard Now (Creole)
Review by Cliff White, New Musical Express, 19 November 1977
AT IRREGULAR intervals throughout the 20 years since he cut about a dozen of the greatest rock'n'roll records ever made, Little Richard has re-re-recorded the ...
Little Richard and Solomon Burke: Sex & God & Rock & Roll
Report and Interview by Vernon Gibbs, The Village Voice, 10 August 1982
THE FIRST time I encountered Little Richard, his face was plastered against a Bedford-Stuyvesant wall — the poster advertised a show at the Breevort Theater. ...
Profile by Bill Bentley, L.A. Weekly, 1 November 1984
WAY BACK when rock & roll radio was first coming into its own, stuffing listener's ears with the likes of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Fats ...
Little Richard: The Quasar Speaks!
Interview by Bill Holdship, Creem, January 1985
LITTLE RICHARD Penniman is one of rock's greatest legends. If you're interested in his past, you'd be well advised to read his new biography, The ...
Little Richard (1985) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 5 March 1985
This is a transcript of Barney's audio interview with Little Richard. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Little Richard/Larry Williams/Bobby Day albums
Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 16 March 1985
Little Richard, Here’s Little Richard (Ace)Little Richard: Little Richard Volume 2 (Ace)Little Richard: The Fabulous Little Richard (Ace)Larry Williams: Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Ace)Bobby Day: The ...
Little Richard: The King and Queen of Rock 'n' Roll
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 23 March 1985
YOU CATCH sight of him across the Hilton's gaudy foyer, an ordinary enough black man in track-suit top, tuxedo pants, and matted wet-look coiffure. ...
Even God can do better with Little Richard on his side
Interview by Maureen Cleave, London Express Service, 24 March 1985
GOD ALWAYS addresses Little Richard by name — it was the same with Moses and the prophet Samuel and St. Paul. ...
Solomon Burke, Willie Garcia, Johnny Otis, Little Richard: Four Souls – From Music To The Ministry
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1985
SOLOMON BURKE looked more like Don Corleone surveying his domain in The Godfather than a preacher preparing to conduct a recent late-afternoon service. ...
Little Richard: This Man Invented Rock'n'roll
Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 22 October 1986
Little Richard was wearing make-up and singing pervy songs and shocking audiences before Prince or Sid Vicious or Martin Degville were even born. "I'm a living legend!" ...
Little Richard: "I Am The Rill Thang!"
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, Q, December 1986
GOOD GOSH A-MIGHTY...it's Little Richard. A little fuller in the face, a little thicker in the waist, but there he is in a Mayfair Hotel ...
Little Richard: The Specialty Sessions
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
THOUGH HE RECORDED for several other labels in his career, the few years that Little Richard spent with Art Rupe's Specialty Records were to provide ...
Report and Interview by Robert Gordon, Musician, December 1990
WHO Little Richard WHERE Macon, Georgia WHEN September 23, 1990 ...
Bumps Blackwell and Little Richard: 'Tutti Frutti'
Interview by John Pidgeon, Record Hunter, May 1991
Written by: Dorothy La Bostrie and Richard PennimanProduced by: Bumps BlackwellRecorded in: New Orleans in September 1955 ...
Little Richard: AWOP-BOP-ALOO-MOP-ALOP-BAM-BOOM!
Profile by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 18 June 1992
THERE'S NO QUESTION that some rock icons learned how to do what they do by watching and hearing Little Richard, from the cascading "whooo's!" on ...
10 Questions for Little Richard
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1999
The sultan of frutti on the Devil’s music, Pat Boone and the best hair pomade. ...
Little Richard et al.: South By South West, Austin
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2004
A marguerita-fuelled Glastonbury taking over a whole town for five days would have a hard time matching the glory and madness of this enormous musical ...
The Early Days of the "Rock 'n' Roll Comeback" Album
Retrospective by Steven R Rosen, SonicBoomers.com, 2009
WHEN THE album-rock revolution hit full force in 1967, blues veterans were immediately in a great place to benefit. Revered by the new, young rock ...
Memoir by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 5 May 2009
I AM NINE years old, watching Don't Knock The Rock in High Wycombe's Rex cinema, when I make a connection between music and the way ...
The Domino Effect: How One of Toronto's Most Iconic Rock Concerts Almost Never Happened
Retrospective by Juliette Jagger, Noisey, 13 April 2015
FOR MANY, the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival of 1969 is the stuff of legends. For some, like famed rock promoter and pop culture icon ...
Little Richard: Directly From My Heart – The Best Of The Specialty & Vee-Jay Years
Review by Bud Scoppa, Uncut, July 2015
Richard & Bumps had a baby and they called it rock'n'roll... ...
Little Richard: Great Gosh A'Mighty
Retrospective by David Burke, Vintage Rock, 2018
THE FIRST SIGN appeared on a flight from Melbourne to Sydney in 1957. Little Richard was travelling up country as part of a touring bill ...
Billy Vera: Rip It Up – The Specialty Records Story
Book Review by Tony Burke, Record Collector, January 2020
ONE OF THE most important independent post-war record labels, Specialty is up there with Chess, Modern/RPM, King, and Atlantic. ...
Retrospective by Jason King, Pitchfork, 11 May 2020
Remembering the undisputed architect of rock'n'roll ...
'I Don't Know What You've Got': Little Richard With Young Jimi Hendrix
Retrospective by Paul Sexton, uDiscoverMusic, 20 November 2020
'I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)' became Richard's last Top 20 R&B hit and featured a future superstar guitarist. ...
Peter Guralnick Gets Lost in Profiles of Musical Giants
Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 3 December 2020
PETER GURALNICK didn't set out to be a music journalist. The occupation didn't really exist at the time when a combination of luck and bluster ...
Specialty Records: An Interview with Billy Vera
Interview by Tony Burke, Record Collector, September 2021
As the Specialty label celebrates 75 years, Tony Burke talks to Billy Vera – singer, songwriter, and the author of Rip it Up: The Specialty ...
see also Robert "Bumps" Blackwell
back to LIBRARY
