Yea the 50's were great. Sears on Kingsway in Burnaby had a listening room where you could listen to samples in the mid 50's. 45's, 78's and Lps. Bought a lot of records there. Still have a number of them.
I liked the story D’Mar told of how he came to play in Little Richard’s band. I’m too young to have really caught the full blast of Little Richard. I’m more in that 2nd wave where I heard his songs being covered by others and had to go find him for myself. When I did, I was hooked on him; much more deeply than his contemporaries in that genre. I don’t even know if it’s appropriate to talk about ‘genre’ when I’m talking about the ‘originator and the architect’. To me he is unique.
At a New year's Eve event, about 900 people, my band did an opening 1.5 hr set, then after break we backed up Bo Diddley....all the way up into him doing the MC'ing to bring in the New year. It was of course quite fun. He shared with me some Little Walter Stories (of course in our conversation sitting around in the green room I had to ask him about Little Walter) he shared with me that he really felt that it was the 3 of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and him that really kicked off (started) Rock 'n Roll. I never met or heard Little Richard but, may he R.I.P.
Gnarly - great call on Esquerita!! Not only was he a musical pioneer and a big influence on Little Richard, but also on the New York Dolls. It took some cojones to dress like he did and to record something like this in 1965. https://youtu.be/mGDtNeeAS6M
Yeah, these are the heroes of my generation. Great music, of all kinds. It's worth noting that many of the early Little Richard hits were 12 bar blues structure--Miss Ann, Good Golly Miss Molly, even the chorus of Tutti Frutti. Here's Pat Boone to pay tribute.
Last Edited by Gnarly on May 10, 2020 4:18 PM
