Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
To have the arrogance of self-belief that you are the number one, the top dog in your field must at times surely mean you court controversy with a willing heart.
There is no point being a showman on stage, a diva on the boards, if you don’t have the confidence to be even more outrageous in real life, for the states of being go hand in hand, they are the heights we reach for when we have something to say and are driven by a beating heart that has a measure of ego spurring it on.
The 20th Century is replete with art, some superb, some immortalised, and some that to everything else is the catalyst of performance, and as Spencer Leigh, one of the towering journalists to whom music is more than a passion, rapidly uncovers in his latest detailed biography, Little Richard: Send Me Some Lovin’, some are responsible for an art form in the first place, to whom without it could be discussed and argued that the genres they brought into being would not have existed in the same way without.
Little Richard’s name might not mean an awful lot to many today, perhaps only citing one or two songs when asked of his part in music history by a generation more inclined to see music from their own viewpoint, their struggles, hopes, and desires, but nevertheless, the man, the myth, the truth is far more than just a couple of songs watched via black and white repository, he is a figure head for a movement, one as an openly gay black man who inspired a wealth of talented musician who followed in his enormous footsteps.
Not so much a maverick, but certainly a pioneer, sound and music changed from the moment he released the single Tutti Frutti, from the second he let out that passionate wail of fun, Rock ‘n’ Roll was born to rule the airwaves.
Spencer Leigh, like all journalists should be, primarily focuses on the asserted truths, albeit in many observed ways from various sources and those who worked with or were enamoured by, and by doing so gives the reader an account of a life that is extraordinary, unsubtle, mesmeric, and often filled with the pain of not understanding why the public at large couldn’t see his own greatness.
It is in shadow of demonstrative affection that the man, the minister, the showman, falls, and yet it seems not for long, despite the setbacks, the time away from the pulpit and the piano, more of those who followed were found to see the inspiration. Paul McCartney might never have found that high note for example, that introduction or halfway between choruses that drew attention to the song, we might not have had the same interaction with Billy Preston, with Philip Bailey, or indeed for the briefest of times with Jimi Hendrix.
In 2020 we lost a legend of music, but perhaps we can see that in some ways we lost him before that, so tightly wound into his own persona, only the inspiration in the end mattered, not the music, not the re-releases, and certainly not the devilish way that he was repackaged numerous times by labels, management, or indeed in one bloated awful transparent why by the people behind the nostalgia packages fronted by of all acts, Jive Bunny.
Spencer Leigh’s ethic is such that he does not need to go down the warts and all expose of his subjects in which to craft a tale of sublime beauty and truth. His instinctive reasoning and love of the musician is plain to see, and the way the reader can digest the life of the man is in itself honest, passionate, and joyful.
A recommended read for all fans of Little Richard, and of music in general, for without whom much of what we take for granted now simply wouldn’t be.
Ian D. Hall