Lyrics were changed to remove the homosexual references.
Surprisingly Little Richard was a homosexual and Liberace too!
Who Knew?
Well ok.
When his spokesman said Liberace was losing weight because he was on a watermelon diet I wondered what he was doing with the watermelons.
While I adore Mr. Penniman’s work, it is generally understood by rock and roll musicologists that he ripped off his entire stye from Eskew Reeder aka “Eskarita” from South Carolina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRZy0uapPGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imZyUcZjc0s&feature=related
Being it the same age group, for my crowd, rock and roll stunk...we were into R & B. Had a black radio station in Detroit that only played R & B. Those that were into R & R took good R & B songs and had them covered by a white singer ie: like Pat Boone. Slowly the R & B groups became mainline. Loved Jackie Wilson, Billy Ward and the Domino’s. Other blues and Jazz singers..
It's Richard Wayne Penniman (aka Little Richard) about fifteen years before "Tutti Frutti, oh, Rooty".
As child, his skill on the piano was already evident.
If you're familiar with early period Beatles, you'll know that McCartney was heavily influenced by Little Richard. A-whop bop-a-lu bop a-whop bam boom
Here is some very rare footage of "Little Richard" as a child, when he was just starting out in the music biz' ....
From a movie he did with Van Johnson ..
Read down in the text and use the link (”covers”) for the Beatles redo of “Long Tall Sally”; for comparison.
That’s what I call annoying kind of rock and roll.
Little Richard was fantastic one of the most explosive performers ever. Jimi Hendrix played guitar for him while still a teenager.
Anyone who has not listened to Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis has not heard rock and roll.
Great Music form the good ol’days!
btt