The musician that made Lemmy want to be a singer
Rock and roll was never intended to be a squeaky-clean genre. From the moment Chuck Berry started to chug away at the opening notes of ‘Johnny B Goode’, fans knew this was the kind of music to crank in the car stereo and piss their parents off while listening to. Though the genre would expand its horizons well beyond the first generation of rock and roll, Lemmy kept the old tradition going with Motörhead.
Before he started his heavier take on traditional rock and roll, though, Lemmy had already been working on the fringes of rock history. Having turned in time as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, the bassist had already been making a living in the psychedelic band Hawkwind, who had started gaining steam from their semi-hit ‘Silver Machine’.
After being ditched by the group due to a drug bust in the middle of a tour, Lemmy took the last song he penned for Hawkwind and turned it into the first song of his latest outfit, Motörhead. Although he may have wanted to push things forward with his music, Lemmy kept one of the fathers of rock and roll pretty close to the chest.
Before getting the itch for acts like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Lemmy loved the music of Little Richard. While seated initially behind a piano, Little Richard became the ultimate rock and roll showman, playing up his glamorous looks while also being able to shred his larynx whenever he played songs like ‘Tutti Fruiti’ or ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’.
When talking about Richard’s legacy, Lemmy would credit the rock and roll pioneer for making him want to form a band, telling Metal Evolution, “The heaviest thing when I was growing up was Little Richard. He didn’t try to make his voice nice [or] acceptable. He just sang it how he felt it. And I always admired that. That’s why I sing like I do. I don’t try to put on any heirs or graces. If I had a hero in those days, it would have been him.”
It’s not hard to see the throughline from Little Richard to Lemmy, either. Throughout Richard’s career, his gravelly approach to vocals became pivotal in launching the more raucous side of rock and roll, being a favourite amongst The Beatles. When Lemmy stormed onto the scene with Motörhead, his voice had the same grizzly tone as Richard’s, sounding like the embodiment of what the troubadour rock and roller should sound like.
Lemmy also admired how Richard could stand out next to his contemporaries, explaining in another Metal Evolution episode, “He’s from Macon, Georgia. Could you imagine being black and gay in Macon, Georgia, in 1957? And putting a dress on with a pencil moustache? Jesus Christ, it’s bad enough being gay there now, I should think.”
The lineage back to Little Richard didn’t stop at Lemmy, either. Since Metallica started, James Hetfield would count Lemmy among his favourite singers for the same reasons Lemmy loved Richard, citing his ability to not sugarcoat any of his performances and go for it no matter what other people thought of him.
While Little Richard has gotten his fair share of praise as a founder of rock and roll, his fearlessness had more to do with being himself. The world had had enough technically proficient singers, but there was never a shred of dishonesty whenever Little Richard or Lemmy opened their mouths.
