“The star of the show”: The one rock and roll star Little Richard saw as an equal
One of the key cornerstones of the rock and roll revolution back in the 1950s, Little Richard ushered in a bold new age of adrenaline-fuelled youth expression that has never really subsided. What’s more, the man himself never made any attempt to hide his influence in a shroud of modesty, expressly calling himself the ‘Architect of Rock and Roll’.
After all, who wants to see a modest rockstar? In every fibre of his being, Little Richard embodied the cultural revolution of that age. A Black man in the 1950s did not rise to the top of America’s cultural output, donning make-up and bejewelled outfits, playing rock and roll on national television, by being modest. While his outspoken nature might have been classified as arrogance by the older generation of artists, Richard wasn’t saying anything that was untrue; he was simply revelling in the rock realm that he had created.
There were other pioneers in that rock field, of course. Elvis Presley, for instance, was often crowned ‘The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’, and although the rockstar shared a mutual respect for Little Richard, the pianist tended to fall in line with Ray Charles’ view: “The king of what?”
Even from behind all that sweat and eyeliner, Little Richard was never ignorant of the complex racial politics of the 1950s, and he was aware that people like Presley were being given opportunities that Black artists were not, despite the origins of rock and roll being inescapably Black.
In that sense, there were only ever a handful of artists Little Richard considered true contemporaries; people who had overcome similar levels of institutionalised adversity to strike upon a bold new sound that destroyed the racial barriers of American culture. His interviews were very often self-centred, with the songwriter taking full credit for birthing rock and roll, and he never saw any problem with making cutting remarks about his fellow rockers, but he always maintained a respect for one, Chuck Berry.
The original rock guitar hero, Berry’s sound was totally different from Richard’s, but they were both imbuing the same revolutionary spirit. Individually, they recorded a plethora of hit records and influential classics, but collectively, they were responsible for carving out the bedrock for virtually all future rock, R&B, and blues music.
Without their influence, The Beatles would have been void of their key influences, as would The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and an unquantifiable array of other similarly colossal artists.
On multiple occasions, Richard and Berry would perform on the same bill, and the guitarist was seemingly the only person that Little Richard would concede as having created rock and roll. “Really, Chuck was the star of the show,” he said in the wake of Berry’s death in 2017, per Billboard. “I’d tell him I’m the creator of rock ‘n’ roll, he’d say, ‘I am,’ but I have to admit, he’s older than me, he came before me… The truth is the truth.”
“Chuck Berry, his songs are rock n’ roll standards, and mine are classics also,” Richard continued. “Chuck had more hits than I had. But we both contributed… It’s been a blessing and a lesson, and I thank God for letting me live at this time so I could be a part of it.”
It isn’t as though the rock reputation of Chuck Berry was ever in any doubt, but it is telling of the guitarist’s unconquerable influence that he appears to have been the only other rock star that Little Richard would cite as a true contemporary during those early days of rock and roll.
