Australia is a strange place in the extreme.
In any case, Little Richard was influenced by her like nothing else.
Touring the "continent of solitary loneliness" with Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran began in October 57th.
Everything was fine - and the reception of the audience with a flurry of applause and hysterical cries of young fans, and undressing on stage with throwing laundry into the hall and throwing it back - right on the stage and right into it, Little Richard.
Everything was amazing.
On the flight from Melbourne to Sydney, he saw angels.
They supported the wings of the aircraft and cooled the engines, which were red-hot to a white glow.
What's special here?
The plane was thrown, the flight was disturbing - who, if not angels, came to his aid that day?
Richard Wayne Penniman (Little Richard) was born into a family more than pious and never forgot about it.
Father, Pentecostal church deacon, tolerable bricklayer and illegal dealer of hellish fire water (in his own, if not the coolest, nightclub), mother, head of the church choir, and 12 more children in her arms (Little Richard was the third in a row).
What to do here, how not to cry day and night to Heaven?
In addition, Richard always looked smaller than his peers, limped on one leg (a birth injury), looked too slender and even a little feminine.
From the age of three he loved to play everything he could reach: the first thing he used was pots with lids.
And he also took, even in the church choir, such high notes, turning to howling and screeching (in an ecstatic frenzy), that he was temporarily excommunicated from singing hymns on Sundays.
Howling and screeching is his hallmark.
Difficult to confuse.
He threw a ring with a huge diamond (a rock and roll star, after all!) into the waters of Sydney Harbor, having come into an indescribable rage from the words of his group's saxophonist Clifford Burks: he allowed himself to doubt the veracity of the boss's words that he, " full of love for the Lord, intends to give up sinful singing and puts an end to his rock career, forever.
How do you like that?
Do you know who is to blame for everything?
USSR and its satellite.
At the end of a mind-blowing show in Sydney, when the stands seemed to collapse and the stadium crowded with fans went wild, a fiery meteor flew across the sky - the effect of the elements of the first satellite of the Earth burning in the atmosphere, so to speak (forever we are out of place) ...
PS-1 - "the simplest satellite No. 1."
Where are we to frills?
And a launch vehicle, also Sputnik, based on the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile.
How could we have known that we would ruin the career of a great man?
And he, so that no one would doubt anything, a ring of such and such carats - and into the harbor ... Are they looking for it?
The water area is small, there are many chances, and nothing has passed - 64 years.
But the fact that the plane ordered for Richard at the end of the tour (if it went to the end) fell into the Pacific Ocean is not for us.
But the “real king of rock and roll” was deeply impressed by this incident.
And he left rock.
For five full years.
And Specialty Records, perfectly fattening on the abundance of Little Richard's studio recordings (28 months from beep to beep on your favorite label), continued to release them after all the revelations and removals of the star from the world: only in 1958 - three singles: Good Golly Miss Molly, Oh!
My Soul and Baby Face.
Let's talk about the period before the "revelations".
And why did he suddenly call himself "the real king of rock and roll."
I guess he was insane in a certain way.
Four years of recording without any hope of success (including on RCA Records - boogie-woogie and rhythm and blues with numerous elements of Sunday chants).
Performances in bars and nightclubs of dubious reputation (including my own daddy).
Endless wanderings through the cities of America.
And the Lord brought him to New Orleans.
To New Orleans.
Where 22-year-old Richard was noticed by the music producer of Specialty Records, offering a short contract.
And the recording didn't work right away.
Producer Robert Blackwell even had a feeling of failure, and after all, Fats Domino's team played as studio musicians.
During a gloomy lunch (in the middle of a session) at a local hotel, Richard ran in desperation to the piano in the lobby and, after hitting the keys several times, yelled in a frenzy: “A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam- boom!
Tutti frutti, oh rootie!
Tutti frutti, oh rootie!
Blackwell dropped his watch into a thick, spiced tomato soup.
It was September 1955 outside.
This is how the motto of rock and roll was born and a universal remedy for relieving post-depressive syndrome was invented.
Lunch was cancelled.
In the studio, Richard was vehemently interrogated by Dorothy Labostrie, a songwriter who just happens to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Richard (perhaps shedding tears of remorse) informed her that the lyrics were a mix of southern jargon "from the farthest and darkest places, ma'am" and that he would not mind "a highly educated ma'am tweaking it as she pleased."
Dorothy corrected.
And she actually became the author of the text.
And she received deductions for the incredibly popular Tutti Frutti all her long life - the finger of fate, not otherwise.
The hit was recorded in the evening of the same day, despite the voice of Little Richard, planted by the morning roulades.
Moreover, the producer, demonstrating knowledge of the topic, forced the singer to almost rest his nose on the microphone - hence (and further - everywhere) the cracked, hysterically overloaded sound of the recordings.
According to everyone present in the studio, it was a breakthrough, diamond placers, Klondike on the road.
The very first sales of the single amounted to a deafening 200 copies - the angels, who would later support the plane, frankly joked about Little Richard.
"I do not understand anything!
Do they want the old blues?
They want a BB Book?!
What the heck?!
I sing what no one else sings!!!"
I think Mr. Richard's yelling at fate (off-record) was out of place.
No matter how advanced the youth of the 50s was, they still needed time to raise a real nonsense on the flag and thereby send the whole decent world to hell.
Two weeks later, the first million Tutti Frutti singles were sold.
Six months later - no less copies of Long Tall Sally, Rip It Up and Ready Teddy. But Richard proclaimed himself the "real king" after the first victory. And it's kind of funny to some extent. Pat Boone covered Tutti Frutti without even knowing what he was singing about, Elvis covered all Little Richard's hits because he liked them madly, the chaste public just went crazy, but the hero at the piano was so strange and a little caricatured ... that he got away with it and got away with it. He carved a niche for being an exceptional entertainer in audacity, but the laurels of crushing the era of crooners went to the gang of Sam Phillips and the Sun studio.
Do you love Little Richard?
Can you listen to it for hours?
That's it: its TNT equivalent is a salute for two or three minutes, after which the mastodons of the fusion of country and blues enter the stage.
On the other hand, where are we without fireworks?
Without champagne over the edge?
Without screams, devoid of meaning, but simply because it's good?
In 1962, Richard returned to the fans and went on tour in Europe.
There, he had The Beatles as the opening act in Britain, and a year later, The Rolling Stones.
And now, it would seem, much more and what else?
Only the level of popularity still in comparison speaks for itself.
Richard was good at both rock and roll and sacred music.
With only one clarification - like the previously mentioned fireworks.
And to be honest, two of his records in the collection (for me) is a worthy maximum.
If you want to see Little Richard during the second wave of success, at the time when Elvis opened the way for all the rockers of the South straight to Olympus, watch the documentary film Let The Good Times Roll 1973. There, Little Richard is exactly what he always wanted to be ( but I will not ruin the intrigue).
Otherwise, everything in our life, as always, is Bama Lama Bama Loo !!!
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.