Younger Richard Penniman packed so much into his adolescent years. The child from Macon, Georgia that we got here to know as Little Richard sang in church, ran off with a medication present, sang in a minstrel troupe and was adopted by a white household. Then, on October 16, 1951, in Atlanta, he made his first-ever recordings.
The chance arose when the singer Billy Wright launched Little Richard to Zenas Sears, a DJ who championed R&B music on the state-owned radio station WGST. Wright wore heavy make-up and gelled his hair, massively influencing the model of a younger performer who was nonetheless some weeks away from his nineteenth birthday.
The session came about on the station, the place Richard was backed by Wright’s backing band. Charles White’s e book The Life and Occasions of Little Richard says that the younger hopeful was clearly attempting to mimic his idol Wright, to little success, and he’s barely recognizable because the later, assured frontman we all know so effectively.
Songs from that and a later session can be launched early in 1952. The eight tracks Richard recorded for RCA Camden included the blues ballad “Every Hour,” which was promoted at retail degree by Sears and had native success in Atlanta and his dwelling city of Macon. The tracks later appeared on albums when he had made his identify within the first flush of rock’n’roll.
Hearken to the 50s playlist for extra nice Nineteen Fifties pop and rock’n’roll classics.
However that first whiff of success with “Every Hour,” nevertheless native, was intoxicating for Richard – and his household, it appears. In White’s e book, he recollects: “The record began to get a good amount of local airplay, and people came to know me. My daddy was proud of me for the first time in his life. He made sure that ‘Every Hour’ was played on the jukebox in his club, the Tip In Inn, on Woodliff Street, as often as possible. He often put the nickels in himself.”
Purchase or stream The Very Better of Little Richard.
