The surprising band Little Richard compared The Beatles to: “I discovered them”
With his pompadour, outlandish behaviour, and energetic performances, Little Richard firmly placed himself at the forefront of the rock ‘n’ roll explosion. While it is difficult to pinpoint which 1950s star first instituted the genre, there is no doubt that the piano-playing American was one of its most significant and influential forces.
Producing bold hits such as ‘Tutti Frutti’, which contained stark homosexual themes and descriptions of anal sex for the time, Little Richard rebelled against the conservative popular music of the era and embraced the experimental attitude of the younger generation. By combining frenetic music with playful, provocative themes, he and other rockers like Chuck Berry paved the way for future acts, from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin and even later hits like the explicit ‘WAP’. Social mores meant nothing to him.
Such was his influence that Little Richard even made a particularly significant impact on The Beatles. In 1962, after five years of abandoning music as a born-again Christian, famed manager Don Arden persuaded Richard to tour Europe. He agreed, including a co-residency with the four Liverpudlian newcomers at Hamburg’s Star Club. The German chapter was momentous for The Beatles in all aspects, but learning directly from Richard how to perform his songs, which they then brought to their original music, was especially valuable. It was from him that John Lennon and Paul McCartney got their signature wails.
Lennon was always open about the impact of Little Richard on him. In The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography, he describes 1956’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ as the definitive cut by the American innovator, which his own group would cover in 1964, cementing their link forever. Lennon recalled: “When I heard it, it was so great I couldn’t speak.”
The track was so crucial for Lennon that it even made ‘The King of Rock and Roll’ himself, Elvis Presley, pale in comparison thereafter. He added: “I didn’t want to leave Elvis, but this was so much better.” It wasn’t just Lennon either; even drummer Ringo Starr was galvanised by Richard’s work.
Given their firm connection, Little Richard had a lot to say about The Beatles, too, and in true form, some of it was debatable. He discussed his relationship with the band during a 2000 interview with Marc Allan, available at The Tapes Archive.
Not only did he claim to discover them, but he also provided insight into how his manager, Bumps Blackwell, and The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, arranged their co-residency. Richard recalled: “Brian Epstein’s daddy had a lot of record shops, and he brought me to Liverpool. He introduced me to these boys who had just got a group together. And Ringo had just come with them. So I took them with me to a club in Hamburg, Germany, called the Star Club. That’s where we started getting together.”
However, the outspoken Richard’s most intriguing point was that he didn’t immediately recognise the quartet as stars, which is something many who witnessed them during their formative years also later admitted to, as Hamburg was very much their incubation period. He also compared them to a renowned rock band known for their clean-cut nature: “They sounded like four Everly Brothers to me,” he asserted.
With The Everly Brothers representing everything that Richard wasn’t, it’s clear that he didn’t think much of The Beatles when he first saw the young upstarts take to the stage. It indicates just how much development the Fab Four enacted in Germany.
