Little Richard always thought James Brown was in a league of his own: “He puts his whole heart in it”
Calling Little Richard a singer does the rock and roll progenitor something of a disservice; force of nature would be far more accurate.
From the moment that the wild explosion of his rock and roll energy burst onto the airwaves of 1950s America, nothing was ever quite the same again – even if he wasn’t the only musician aiming to alter the landscape during that era.
Trying to pin the emergence of rock and roll on one solitary performer is an impossibility, but certain rock stars did seem to loom over all the rest back in the 1950s. From the get-go, the flamboyance and otherworldly output of Little Richard put him right at the forefront, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, even if his record sales were dwarfed by those of the so-called ‘King’.
At the root of Richard’s sound, like all great rock and roll heroes, was the blues, but Richard set himself apart from the predominantly white rock stars climbing the pop charts by incorporating elements of gospel into his output. “I was singing… the words would be blues, but the music was gospel,” he later declared during a 2003 interview.
Gospel, of course, had roots going back hundreds of years by the time that Little Richard and his cohort of rock and roll revolutionaries first emerged, but the timeless style nevertheless seemed particularly suited to the prevailing sounds of the 1950s, whether it was the energetic rock that Richard was peddling, or the blossoming worlds of funk, soul, and R&B, of which James Brown was already establishing himself as the king.
Although he could certainly give the rock scene a run for its money, in terms of his fast-living and seemingly endless resources of energy, Brown was never really a part of the rock and roll boom. Instead, the performer established himself as the forerunner of the era’s R&B scene, and his infectious sound would soon go on to inspire everything from 1960s Motown to 1990s hip-hop – he even taught Mick Jagger how to dance.
Little Richard, for all his outspoken self-belief and inarguable star power, could not help but stand in a certain sense of awe when presented with James Brown. Interviewed for the documentary film James Brown: Soul Survivor, Richard heaped praise onto the funk forefather, “James really had that gospel thing,” he remembered. “He had that gospel type.”
Gospel barely scratched the surface of Brown’s skillset, though. “James is good in whatever he [does],” the rock hero continued. “If he sing gospel. he’s great, if he sing blues. he’s great, if he sing rock, he’s great, but I never heard James really do rock – I know he can, he can do anything he wants to.”
According to Little Richard, James Brown was always a cut above: “Whatever he does, he puts his whole heart in it,” he said.
Not only did James Brown change the musical landscape forevermore, but he also managed to be a colossal influence on rock and roll, despite never wholly embracing that style. It is telling, then, that somebody like Little Richard would still view Brown as an untouchable hero, rather than viewing him through the lens of rivalry with which he would undoubtedly view his fellow rock and roll performers.
In the end, it seems as though James Brown’s output was elevated beyond any kind of genre conventions; he was in a league entirely of his own.
