Posted on 09/03/2013 9:59:16 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
One of rock’s most distinctive and influential performers is calling it quits.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, legendary recording artist Little Richard admitted that, just a few months shy of his 81st birthday, he’s hanging it up as a performer. “I am done, in a sense,” he told the magazine, adding, “I don’t feel like doing anything right now.”
Troubled by sciatica and a degenerating hip, Little Richard (born Richard Penniman on Dec. 5, 1932) has performed sparingly in recent years and hasn’t always managed to play up to his usual standards. In June 2012, he was forced to stop a show, telling the crowd, “Jesus, please help me – I can’t hardly breathe. It’s horrible.” He recovered sufficiently to headline at 2013′s Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend, but that seems to have been a temporary reprieve.
According to the Rolling Stone article, he now spends his time designing clothes and praying — and thinking about the impact left by his groundbreaking early singles like ‘Tutti-Frutti’ and ‘Long Tall Sally.’ “I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn’t no such thing as rock ‘n’ roll,” he mused. “When I started with ‘Tutti Frutti,’ that’s when rock really started rocking.”
A 65-year veteran of show business and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, as well as a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Little Richard helped lay the groundwork for scores of rock artists during the ’50s before announcing his retirement from secular music toward the end of the decade. Although he returned to his recording career during the following decade, he struggled to regain his commercial momentum, suffering through a few fallow years before reinventing himself as a steady live performer and studio sideman during the ’70s. His most recent LP, the Disney Records release ‘Shake It All About,’ was issued in 1992.
I know...it’s criminal what happened to the majority of those acts...royally screwed.
I remember a story told to me by a guitarist who worked with Little Richard at the same time Jimi Hendrix was there. According to him, Little Richard fired Hendrix with the parting words “There’s only room enough in this band for one star”.
Little Richard IS Rock and Roll.
Nobody under 40 knows what RPM means.
It’s too bad that his music from the 60’s is so little known, because his soul cuts from that era are at least the equal of his far better known 50’s rockandroll rave ups.
How he pestered and pestered to get recorded is an interesting story in itself.
I didn't see it, but I was told that on one of his Johnny Carson appearances Johnny asked him what he attributed his success to. Little Richard responded with a couple of platitudes but finished with "and I could scream like a white woman!" It would be great if this were true. It sure sounds like him.
CC
One of a kind....
This guy is awesome.
I guess sooner or later everybody runs low on energy.
Catalina Caper.
81 ... and yet he could pass for one in his 50s.
That’s great! What movie is that from?
“How he pestered and pestered to get recorded is an interesting story in itself.”
That was probably with the RCA label back in ‘51 or ‘52 when he first started out recording. However when he went to the Specialty label, around ‘55, his career changed and started to get crossover attention to the white audiences.
I saw Little Richard at the annual Elvis Festival in Tupelo, MS about 10 years ago. Sitting on lawn chairs in a Parking lot waiting and waiting for Little Richard to perform and damn near leaving because I never cared for him anyhow, I am very glad we stayed. He finally came out and set the tone for his performance when he told the predominately white and older crowd that he was sorry he was late but he was having trouble with his makeup. Brought the place down. Then he really took over and gave show that can only be describes as TERRIFIC. This show came the year following the year they had Charley Daniels and B.B.King. Both of whom were unimpressive. Daniels in particular. Almost like he did not want to be there.
A balloon pop and he had a hilarious reaction. He said "I thought I was done for".
But he has an interesting personal testimony. He was gay early in his career. But he says God eventually convinced him that God made man to be with Steve not Eve.
Little Richard is proof that God can change homosexuals.
Poor man. I hope that he is able to learn to enjoy his retirement. He seemed to love performing.
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