Featured Playlist
- 15 Songs
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1955
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1957
- Little Richard · 1958
- Little Richard · 1958
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1956
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1956
- Little Richard · 1958
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1957
- Little Richard: The Georgia Peach · 1957
- Here's Little Richard (Deluxe Edition) · 1957
Essential Albums
- Like a bolt of pure rock 'n' roll energy exploding out of the speakers, Little Richard's sophomore album is an electrifying force of nature. An epic party platter, it’s been known to keep the festivities going long past dawn, courtesy of timeless screamers like the jump blues extravaganza "Keep a Knockin'" and the sexy slow groove "Send Me Some Lovin'." Midtempo dance number "I'll Never Let You Go (Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo)" lets the original Georgia peach's gorgeously raspy yowl stretch out, while "Good Golly, Miss Molly" hasn't lost a bit of its frisky energy.
- We know that Little Richard helped shape rock ’n’ roll into everything it is today, but sometimes we find that fact difficult to contemplate. After all, it's hard to think about anything at all when we're busy wearing a hole in the carpet to the sound of vintage, rip-roaring cuts like "Tutti Frutti," "Slippin' and Slidin'," and "Rip It Up." The raw energy of his raspy howl and his way with the 88s are utterly electrifying—and just as irresistible today as they were more than half a century ago.
- 1986
- 1973
- 1972
- 1970
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- The original wild man of rock 'n' roll.
- A guiding light for early rock 'n' roll's howling excitement.
Live Albums
Appears On
- The Little Richard Band
More To Hear
- Delving into the back catalogues of two powerhouses of music.
About Little Richard
Many rock 'n' roll hits of the '50s might now sound almost tame. But even decades after they were first pounded out, Little Richard's singles have lost none of their shrieking-and-shouting intensity. And if they still feel like two-minutes-and-change jolts of pure joy today, they were blasts of liberation for teenagers in a decidedly more buttoned-up era. Macon, Georgia’s Richard Wayne Penniman, who died on May 9, 2020, brought the ecstatic belting of Baptist gospel into pop, blending it with the foot-stomping beat of the electrified blues. His gender-bending flamboyance shocked moralists while giving a voice to outsiders, scorching a path toward David Bowie's glam androgyny and Prince's gleefully pansexual revolution; the rip-it-up force of songs like "Lucille" and "Tutti Frutti" carried an unmistakable sexual charge. Those glorious torrents of wop-bop-a-loo-bop were barely concealed code for everything you didn't talk about in polite society, while also hitting you as pure ecstatic pop release. Meanwhile, his cross-cultural popularity was a battering ram against music's ruthlessly enforced racial barriers. Attacking his piano with an infectious sense of mayhem, Little Richard blurred the sacred and the profane into a scandalously beautiful roar.
- HOMETOWN
- Macon, GA, United States
- BORN
- December 5, 1932
- GENRE
- Rock