Review: Little Richard: Send Me Some Lovin’ by Spencer Leigh

Disclosure: I was given an advance review copy in PR by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Journalist Spencer Leigh has published a new biography about LGBT rock and roll pioneer and trailblazer Little Richard. He has written many books over the years about rock and roll legends like Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Simon & Garfunkel and is no doubt a classic rock expert so I have high expectations for this book. I’ve been listening to a lot of 50s rock and roll lately and it’s something I wish I didn’t neglect because it’s a very important time period. Anyway, let’s get cracking with this book review and learn about Little Richard.

Book Review

Little Richard holds a lot of significance for Spencer Leigh, not only because he was a rock and roll legend, but that’s how Spencer Leigh and his wife rang in the new millennium. They wanted something upbeat to leave the 90s behind and enter into a new era: the 2000s and what better song than what he calls rock and roll’s war cry than “Tutti Frutti”? It’s music he grew up on, with him being born in 1945. One thing that intrigued Spencer Leigh about Little Richard is that compared to his contemporaries, people didn’t know as many of his songs, besides the most popular ones from the OG rock and roll era of the 50s, and it’s time for that to change. Without Little Richard, there would be no Beatles, and therefore a lot of rock bands wouldn’t exist. His influence goes far beyond that and can be seen in David Bowie (Velvet Goldmine references this), Michael Jackson, and Prince. In short, that’s why he’s important. Part of what makes Little Richard’s music less known than his contemporaries is that, like Prince, he shunned the media and like David Bowie and Elton John, he had a public persona. You could say it was like he was wearing a mask. He didn’t like interviews and he would have set responses.

As you can expect, the book starts off with his humble beginnings in Macon, Georgia. Born into a religious family, one of his biggest influences was the music performed at church and the jazz, swing, and jump blues music of the 40s. When you give the music of Louis Jordan, Joe Lutcher, Piano Red, and Wynonie Harris a listen, you’ll see how it shaped Little Richard’s music and the music that came after him. As a teenager, he performed in church, but because he was always a rebel and loved getting attention, the conservative folks at church weren’t impressed and he was sacked. So he moved onto performing at medicine shows and on the chitlin’ circuit. Later, he’d meet Esquerita, a flamboyant gay rock pioneer who was basically the blueprint for Little Richard with his flashy clothes, pompadour, and that “whooo!” sound he’d make.

He released his first singles in 1951, but he didn’t have a hit until 1955 when “Tutti Frutti” came out. In the meantime, he played gigs and when he didn’t have any gigs, he worked odd jobs like as a dishwasher at a Greyhound bus station. In 1955, he sent a demo tape to Specialty Records and he was proactive and determined and followed up to see if they heard his demo tape. Producer Bumps Blackwell loved what he heard and he left Peacock Records, who he felt saw him as an afterthought, for Art Rupe’s Specialty Records. Art Rupe lent Little Richard $600 to buy out his contract. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch so it was deducted from his royalties. Little Richard said that Art Rupe ripped him off (and I believe him).

He recorded some of his early hits like “Tutti Frutti”, “Rip It Up”, and “Long Tall Sally” at J&M Recording Studio in New Orleans. As for the former, there had to be some changes made before it was ready for radio airplay. The original lyrics were about gay sex, as I talked about in my LGBT songs of classic rock blog post. This was during a time when it was illegal to be gay in the US and the UK so not surprising that they had to change the lyrics for it to be commercially successful. Songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie changed the lyrics to be more “clean” and so she got a co-writing credit along with Little Richard. Keep in mind, it was a very conservative time too, with rock stars being arrested or the police threatening to arrest them for just dancing. It was a profitable song for her, with her making thousands of dollars a year from it in royalties for decades. When recording “Tutti Frutti”, the record label knew they had a hit and Bumps Blackwell said that it had as much potential as Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene”. Soon enough, it took the south and America by storm. The next generation of rock musicians were inspired – Keith Richards called the moment “Tutti Frutti” came out as transforming the world from monochrome to Technicolor, and not just them, but cult filmmaker John Waters was mindblown and later on grew his trademark pencil moustache as a tribute to Little Richard.

By 1956, Little Richard was a leader in rock and roll. Elvis may have been #1, but Little Richard wasn’t far behind and unlike Elvis, he wrote his own songs. The two rock stars were in movies with Elvis starring in Love Me Tender, Loving You, Jailhouse Rock, and King Creole and Little Richard appearing in The Girl Can’t Help It, Don’t Knock The Rock, and Mister Rock and Roll. Bill Haley was in Rock Around The Clock, which was made in only two weeks in 1956. Most of these rock and roll movies weren’t kino (Leigh notes that The Girl Can’t Help It is an exception. It’s a great movie that you can watch for the plot, and because Jayne Mansfield is hot!), but they were influential in a different way, a precursor to music videos if you will, or in more modern terms a TikTokification of movies. I talk about this in my blog post about pre-MTV music videos. The Girl Can’t Help It and Don’t Knock The Rock propelled Little Richard into stardom internationally. He played shows in Canada and released a perfume called Princess Cheri, long before the 2000s trend of every celebrity having a fragrance.

Financially, he was doing well and he moved his family into a mansion in LA, where he was neighbours with boxer Joe Louis. The IRS were after him too. Something didn’t feel right about this rock and roll lifestyle and he thought that the Seventh-day Adventists had a point and Ellen G. White’s The Great Controversy, which he read while on tour in Australia had a real impact on him and he declared that he would dedicate his life to God. When he saw Sputnik in the sky, he thought the world was going to end and he took it as a sign from God to leave the Australian tour early and go home. Here’s something even crazier, after returning to the US 10 days early, he heard that the original flight he was supposed to be on to return to the US crashed into the Pacific Ocean. To him, that was another sign from God. And so he announced his retirement from the industry. He was supposed to go on tour in the UK not long after that, but he pulled out.

To think of it this way… He kinda swapped places with Sam Cooke, and I didn’t really think about that until Spencer Leigh pointed that out in the book. Sam Cooke started his music career in gospel and then crossed over to secular music in the late 50s and right around the same time, Little Richard went the opposite direction, leaving the secular rock and roll world to become a preacher (even though he had a lot of sex and there were plenty of orgies while on tour in the late 50s). He believed that he couldn’t serve the lord and play rock and roll at the same time. A weird move for a rock and roll superstar and I think that’s what makes Little Richard such a fascinating character. Why would you do that at the height of your rock and roll fame? This was a time where there was a lot of change because right around this time, Elvis went into the Army and this opened up an opportunity for new musicians to come in.

Meanwhile in the secular rock and roll world, Little Richard’s influence lived on in Esquerita’s cover of Buddy Holly’s “Maybe Baby” and Buddy Holly’s song “Well All Right” – the title coming from something Little Richard would say. Buddy Holly covered some Little Richard songs while on tour in the UK. Ritchie Valens “Ooh! My Head” was inspired by Little Richard’s “Ooh! My Soul”. Labelmate Larry Williams was frequently compared to Little Richard and he had great songs like “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” and “Slow Down”. Sadly though, he was arrested and spent a couple of years in jail in the early 60s. Even as far away as Italy, you heard his influence in songs like Adriano Celentano’s “42.000 baci” (Roy Young released an English cover, and I talk about this and English language covers of songs originally in other languages in this blog post).

But don’t worry, Little Richard and Elvis came back. Even when Little Richard studied at the Oakwood Adventist Academy and became a vegetarian, he didn’t give up all his luxuries or the rebellious attitude. He loved that lavender Cadillac. As passionate he was about religion, he skipped class a lot and would be disruptive, but he did end up graduating with a bachelor’s in theology. Even then, the Seventh-day Adventists liked having someone with clout join them, so they put up with it. Little Richard released three gospel albums in the early 60s: two volumes of Pray Along With Little Richard and The King of the Gospel Singers. These albums were not as commercially successful as the rock music he released in the 50s. Thankfully musicians kept covering Little Richard songs so he didn’t fade away during his gospel era. The first two albums aren’t found on Spotify (you can find them on YouTube though), but you can find The King of the Gospel Singers there, and I think it’s because it had the legendary Quincy Jones producing it.

A lot of people give British rock stars flack for being white guys ripping off black musicians, but really the truth is more nuanced than that. A lot of them proudly acknowledge the influence black American music had on their sound. The Beatles covered a lot of Little Richard songs and that kept him relevant and introduced his music to a younger audience who were too young to appreciate him the first go around. The Beatles along with The Animals and The Rolling Stones made Little Richard cool again. Speaking of The Beatles, you know how they call Billy Preston the Fifth Beatle? It was through Little Richard that The Beatles met Billy Preston, then a 16 year old organ player in Little Richard’s band. They were touring the UK with Sam Cooke, Jet Harris (formerly of The Shadows), and Gene Vincent in 1962.

The following year, Don Arden convinced him to come back to England and tour with the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, and The Rolling Stones. Thanks to Britain’s love of OG American rock and roll, Little Richard was back! During concerts he would take his clothes off and throw them out into the audience. He was outrageous and always brought the house down. Lots of sold out shows even though he hadn’t had a hit single in years. That’s impressive!

He came back to the UK once again in 1964 and he played American tour dates later that same year and made an appearance on Shindig!. By then Specialty Records was out of business and so Little Richard signed to Vee-Jay and released the album Little Richard is Back (And There’s A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On!). The album was full of covers. The following Vee-Jay release was a greatest hits compilation and sadly the label went out of business in 1966 and songs that he recorded for them weren’t released for years and a lot of them were remakes. In 1965, Jimi Hendrix toured with Little Richard. As you can expect, they had disagreements. Jimi wanted to grow his hair long and not wear some conformist band uniform and Little Richard didn’t want Jimi Hendrix to upstage him. The straw that broke the camel’s back was that Jimi wasn’t getting paid. In 1968, Little Richard played residencies in Las Vegas before Elvis Presley did. He prioritised performances over recording and played the Atlantic City Pop Festival, a 50s rock and roll festival at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, and he performed on Tom Jones’ TV show singing a duet with Tom Jones. Finally in 1970, he released The Rill Thing.

In the late 60s and early 70s, once again the UK came in clutch with the Northern Soul scene appreciating his songs like “I Don’t Want to Discuss It”, “A Little Bit of Something”, “Talkin’ ‘Bout Soul”, and “Get Down With It”. However, that was an underground scene and not mainstream – I think they’re gems though. Glam rockers Slade were big fans of Little Richard and covered “Get Down With It”, originally by Bobby Marchan, who had a drag persona named Roberta. Not surprising because Little Richard was the blueprint for glam rock. Marc Bolan wrote “By The Light of a Magical Moon” inspired by “By The Light of the Silvery Moon”. Wizzard covered “The Girl Can’t Help It” at a 50s tribute concert. The Rolling Stones’ “Rip This Joint” was Little Richard inspired. In 1974, he performed on Burt Sugarman’s The Midnight Special. Even though he preached that drugs were bad, he drank a lot and used cocaine, like a lot of 70s rock stars. He took a break from music in 1976 and returned three years later with another gospel album, God’s Beautiful City. He would preach in churches but he was never ordained, likely because of his sexuality. He claimed to be an ex-gay.

By the 80s, 30 years had passed since rock and roll’s beginnings and this meant that he’d get recognition for his influence on popular music. He was one of the 10 original musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was collaborating with other musicians and appearing in films. He got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990. The Grammys gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993. When The Beatles got into the Rock Hall, George Harrison thanked Little Richard. He even appeared on family and children’s TV shows like Magic School Bus, Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood, and Full House.

What was his last studio album? Well, it was an interesting collaboration, an East meets West collaboration with Japanese jazz fusion guitarist Masayoshi Takanaka, who is amazing! The album is full of remakes of Little Richard’s greatest hits. The album didn’t get much press outside of Japan. Even though he didn’t release any other studio albums, he made guest appearances on other recordings. There was a made for TV biopic made about him, but it wasn’t based on Chas White’s biography of him. He moved to Nashville in the 2000s. Even in his last years he always dressed flamboyantly. RuPaul’s Drag Race fans might remember that season 7 contestant Kennedy Davenport played him on Snatch Game, a segment of the show that is a parody of Match Game where the drag queens impersonate celebrities. Her impersonation was well-received and won in a tie with Ginger Minj’s impersonation of Adele.

He died of cancer at the age of 87 at his home in Tennessee on 9 May 2020. In 2023 a film called Little Richard: I Am Everything came out. In his 50 years in the industry, he released 250 different songs, but he often re-recorded his old songs. At the end of the book is a discography and a list of cover versions of his songs. There are also a lot of photos in the middle of the book and I especially loved seeing photos of Little Richard with Gerry Marsden and The Beatles.

In conclusion, this biography is short, but packed full of facts about Little Richard and his contemporaries. You’re not just learning about him, but about the bigger picture: what came before him, the scene in the 50s, his impact on the music of the 60s and beyond, and music history too. If you’re getting into music of the era, you’ll find a lot of great songs to listen to and it was a joy reading the book and writing this review while listening to the songs he talks about in the book. Some spot on listening recommendations to be found here! Spencer Leigh grew up in that time and as you can expect, he tells some interesting personal stories about the music and there’s a bit of humour in the storytelling. As an American, it makes me happy to see a lot of appreciation of OG American rock and roll from British people and I think it gave Americans a new appreciation for the music of yesteryear.

Overall, Little Richard: Send Me Some Lovin’ is a good read for fans of 50s music and music historians interested in the time period.

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