Little Richard (1932 - 2020)
Little Richard was the Big Bang of Rock and Roll. As such, he ought to be considered one of the most important and influential people of the last century. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Queen and Led Zeppelin are just some of the acts who would not have existed without him.
It's difficult to quantify what it was about Richards that was so inspiring and groundbreaking. Others sang, and others rocked. Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddly, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis; they all rocked. They were all charismatic and influential. But Richards was different. He had something that none of them had.
That voice.
Richards sang with a delighted fury. His voice rasped and rattled like a train at top speed, rounding the bend and barely hanging on. Elvis might have had the more beautiful voice, but compare his version of Hound Dog to Richards' Lucille. Elvis, as great as he is, sounds like a weedy child. Richards sounds like the offspring of Tom Waits, Tom Jones and Cookie Monster on the craziest drugs money can buy.
He took vocal energy to its outer limits. He sang like Hendrix played. He was the first to truly holler at breakneck speed, with a blues-based four-four beat and lyrics that chopped and blended innocence and lust; a style that James Brown would later emulate in the funk and soul fields. (Freddie Mercury had many of those same qualities, and Queen would go on to cover Tutti Frutti in concert many, many times.)
It was a voice of hyper-sexuality; of endless appetite. Pure. Raw. And utterly electrifying. Richards' image and stage persona was bonkers; like some proto-version of Ziggy Stardust and Liberace. He would stand and shimmy, sometimes pounding the ivories, suit shining, hair like an exploding lap-dog, face a vision of ecstatic abandon. He was unlike anything the world had ever seen. And if he'd not seen so utterly delighted by his own energy, he'd probably have been banned from the airwaves and screams. He simply looked too happy to be dangerous. More than anything else, I think this is why he was able - at least for a time - to dissolve the boundary between black and white music. And the songs were too damn good; the music too irresistible.
His personal life was a soap opera of epic proportions, lurching from holy orders to orgies and back again. If it were a film, no one would believe it. Such was the life of the man. In the end, it matters little.
Little Richard changed the world. He gave raw, restless, joyous energy a voice. And we've collectively been singing along ever since.
We will not see his like again.
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