Was Little Richard the king of rock and roll?
There’s no real correct answer for when rock and roll truly started. Since the genre always came from the blues and had its roots in American culture before any had even heard of guitar distortion or the concept of the frontman, it’s easier to see the genre evolving rather than a ‘Big Bang’ effect where everything suddenly appeared out of the blue. Although Elvis Presley has been heralded as the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ by many, there’s a much stronger case to be made that Little Richard had a far greater impact on the genre.
Of course, it’s easy to see where rock music was before Presley arrived. While many people think of Chuck Berry as the first guitar hero, there were still pieces of his sound tied up in blues, down to the bluesy licks he played that sounded like Chicago blues if they cranked the BPM up a little bit.
Although the piano wasn’t the primary instrument of choice for most rockers, Little Richard was the one who introduced the world to what a showman was supposed to be. While Presley got by shaking his ass and moving his hips, Little Richard was the one who was the architect for everything, grabbing the listener by the throat every time he sang and demanding that they pay attention.
Compared to what other people did with his songs, his voice could never be topped. From the minute that he screamed ‘Tutti Frutti’ for the first time, fans got a load of one of the biggest vocalists in the world, and the rest of the world had the gauntlet thrown down for what a vocalist should sound like.
But what made Little Richard’s voice so powerful?
Despite most of his songs relying on blues structures, the way that he approached the microphone opened up doors that most people didn’t think were possible in the mainstream. Suddenly, it was alright to sound a bit rough around the edges at times, and the next generation of rock stars were bound to follow Richard’s model a lot closer than they were to Elvis Presley or Roy Orbison.
While those artists have seen their fair share of praise for their superior vocal method, Little Richard was upfront about teaching The Beatles everything they knew when he took them out on tour on their first run of gigs. And listening to the way Paul McCartney approached tunes like ‘Long Tall Sally’ or his own ‘I’m Down’, he was practically trying to match what he heard his idol doing, calling it an out-of-body experience whenever he dove up into his higher register.
And it wasn’t only the British Invasion acts shouting his praises, either. The Beatles may have been his first mainstream fans, but Lemmy from Motorhead considered him the reason why he wanted to become a singer, eventually forming his own outfit to combine Richard’s snarl with the frenetic energy of bands like the MC5.
It’s also important to realise the number of subgenres that came out in the wake of Little Richard’s rising to prominence. Since John Fogerty’s trademark delivery in Creedence Clearwater Revival is handed down from Richard, the rootsy flavour of rock and roll owes him a debt of gratitude.
And since other bands like The Sonics and the MC5 took that kind of energy to the next level, Richard could be considered one of the first leaders of punk rock as well. He was certainly not thinking in those terms at the time, but hollering at the top of his lungs and not giving a damn what anyone thought of him is the same mindset that everyone from Joe Strummer to John Lydon had when they wanted to speak their minds.
Looking through rock and roll history afterwards, the best singers after Little Richard were all trying to mimic that energy. Whether it was Robert Plant trying to channel that same shout to Chris Cornell, getting his signature gravel going in his voice, it was all done in service to the kind of throat-shredding that people heard on tunes like ‘Keep A-Knockin’ or ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’.
When reflecting on the covers of his songs, he truly was one of a kind when it came to the kind of music that he played. As much as people liked the idea of having someone racistly tidy up his songs, who the hell was going to say that Pat Boone’s version of ‘Tutti Frutti’ was better, complete with a vocal that was the equivalent of a butter-on-Wonderbread sandwich?
Since Presley ended up taking the reins, though, Little Richard thought that he never truly got the praise he deserved, either, telling Rolling Stone, “A lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don’t call myself that, but I believe it’s true. You’ve got to remember, I was already known back in 1951. I was recording for RCA-Victor — if you were black, it was called Camden Records — before Elvis.”
And that’s before even getting into how he pushed the genre into the different directions he made with his look, being one of the first true androgynous superstars to crack America. But no matter how many times people tried to cover up what he did with other artists, that didn’t stop people from seeking the true classics. Because rock and roll was designed to be music to irritate the adults, and even though countless parents might not have approved of Little Richard with his screeching voice and made-up face, he was the one who pushed everyone else to think outside the box whenever they got in front of a microphone.
