You gotta love little Richard

OK here's something different. You've got to love Little Richard, in fact all these guys.  They were some of the musicians I grew up listening to.  This clip is from that film Hail Hail Rock and Roll and it was about Chuck Berry's 60th birthday, well worth watching.  Keith Richard had thrown a party for him in St Louis.  Little Richard goes on to talk about his song Tutti Frutti that was sung by Pat Boone and it's amazing that he could laugh at it, not the version because by comparison it is laughable but given the anger and frustration that he and all those black musicians must have felt inside at having their music stolen and watching someone butcher it. Look at Bo Diddley calming Richard down, whoa boy!  Many of these guys came to Britain and we have folks like Alexis Korner and Long John Baldry to thank for helping expose us to them.  Many of them singing about life in the south and the racism in America introduced politics to us that way although at first I didn't know it. Songs  like Big Bill's Black White and Brown and later Nina Simone's great songs. I'll know I'm at the end of an era when Little Richard dies.




Here's Little Richard playing in his later years. check out Ali.