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matt32 's review for:
The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography
by Charles White
"It's like that old song: 'blomp-blomp-a-noop-noop, a-noop-noop-noop!' You guys know that song? ...From Tiny Rogerts? You never heard of it? You know, the black effeminate guy from the '50s? ...Nobody?" - Rick / Rick and Morty S1E11, "Ricksy Business"
I read once that the ancestral line of punk rock goes from Little Richard to the Sonics to the Stooges. It makes sense: the proto-punk Sonics contributed a more aggressive tempo, and the Stooges, well, they speak for themselves.
But when you turn on a Little Richard song, it's the sheer wildness in his full use of his vocal range that sets him apart from his many magnificent contemporaries in that early era of rock. Bo Diddley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and the rockabilly progenitors all have claims on that era of origination, but no one injected unpredictability like Little Richard.
So here is his story in a nutshell, a book that also made David Bowie's list of all-time favorites. Rather than a traditional narrative, author Charles White has stitched together oral history collected from an impressive bevy of sources - including Little Richard himself. Only briefly does he interject narrative context, often for the purpose of moving us along through history. The effect is something like a VH1 retrospective in book form.
Which is just as well, because the scandal and largesse of Little Richard's career might as well be a made-for-TV tell-all. He's a blunt interviewee, a completely open book about all sorts of backstage antics. If you're holding on to even a shred of innocence in how you picture the lives of rock stars, even as early as the '50s, this book is a great way to jettison it.
One gets used to it quickly though, especially as we learn how wild of a child Little Richard was. The best music histories, no matter how salacious they might get, are the ones that capture the genuine excitement of the new. This book is no exception. The undercurrents of rebellion along the lines of sexuality and gender stereotypes are meticulously captured, as are the simply ludicrous details of Little Richard's costumes and stage antics.
The combined effect brings him to life as a performer. Reading how he unveiled himself in a suit decked out in little mirrors, or how he faked passing out live on stage only to go right into "Lucille" down on the ground, I could just feel the tension and audacious theatrics coming to life. When you hear a Little Richard radio staple even today, it's riveting how he uses every millimeter of his vocal chords, and he was the same type of performer: he went all-in.
As a history of popular music in the late '50s and beyond, this book also shows us a world where contracts were regularly unfair and usurious towards artists, often leaving them with peanuts. One of Little Richard's early records had to measure royalties in half-cent increments. It's part of how the world was, and often still is. We're shown how this reality was only exacerbated by the racial climate of Little Richard's heyday.
Living a life where the business end was frequently a raw deal, and where the temptations were shockingly high, Little Richard seems to have survived - and survived he did, having died only a few years ago in his late eighties - through constant reinvention. His biography doubles as a fascinating exploration of the ping-pong game between the lifestyle excess of a rockstar and the asceticism of religious piety.
More than once we follow Little Richard discover Jesus and quit the rockstar life, then return to it with wilder parties and harder drugs than ever, then become a church man again. Church and family are bedrocks that go hand-in-hand for him; it's hard to imagine him making it past the era that claimed Hendrix and Janis without stabilizing anchors. When Little Richard speaks about a series of sudden deaths of friends and loved ones, about how blindsided he was because of the addictive nature of the rockstar's hedonism, it's heart-breaking. His faith and his family are a huge part of how and why he, despite the obvious racial tension of his climb to fame, is adamant about his music transcending racial boundaries and unifying human beings everywhere: some of the loveliest and most memorable words of the book.
That said. We're also introduced to views Little Richard developed over time about his sexuality that, by contemporary standards, let's just say are Very Much No on the political correctness litmus test. I'm a big believer in studying people and their views as products of their time, and not censoring or retroactively "cleansing" reality. But I'd feel remiss not also dropping the caveat that potential readers who are turned off by proselytizing about "sinful" lifestyles ought to know ahead of time that some of the interviews with Little Richard find him doing exactly that. (Evergreen reminder: Capturing a character or real-life person's fallibility in writing is not the same thing as endorsing their views.)
As I mention one caveat for the star of the show, I'll dole out another for the author. While Charles White's narrative interludes do a nice job moving us through history, sometimes their aerial view is too high. Occasionally he mentions stuff like a wild show in France leading to a riot, with no elaborating details, in order to set up another lurch forward in time. But a wild show that causes a riot in France sounds like a pretty good punchline unto itself! If we aren't going to get those details in the authorized biography, where else will we?
A few other narrative interludes, conversely, inject pinches of editorialization the book might be better without. The author clearly holds that Little Richard is a relatively unsung hero - hard to argue there - and makes no mystery of being a bulldog on his behalf. There are a couple concerts White relays - one featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, one with John Lennon - where he bolsters this view through a narrative that casts the other stars as antagonists along racial lines. No doubt they were part of a system that could and did produce tremendously unfair results for black versus white artists.
But did it go beyond that, beyond the ordinary competitiveness and egotism of rockstars, into *personal* racial antipathy? One might believe "yes" or "no" earnestly and the author might have their own view. But we have it straight from the horse's mouth in this book, where more than once Little Richard decries any notion that other artists are villains who ripped him off. (All the other wheelers and dealers in the music industry, sure.) Here Little Richard's views are three-dimensional and nuanced, and for the author's narrative to advance Lewis and Lennon as racial villains feels like a step back from reality and an inappropriate use of the author's personal voice (it overrides the voice of the subject the very author presents, rightly, as a racial underdog).
It was a complex world, and from the business and racial climate to the jaw-dropping excess of Little Richard's backstage life, the grey zones come to life throughout this book. I had enough minor quibbles that it isn't my top choice for music biography, but there's no doubt that it's a riveting and worthwhile read. And as someone who's always tagged digital music meticulously, I have to tip my cap in appreciation of the super-detailed appendices the author included. They are superb chronicles of Little Richard's recording sessions and discography, obviously compiled out of pure love for the subject's career and music.
Parting words: a few of Little Richard's "first comeback" era songs were recorded with help from a studio guitarist, an ambitious young fellow by the name of Jimi Hendrix. Just one of many gems hidden throughout the immortal career of Little Richard!
I read once that the ancestral line of punk rock goes from Little Richard to the Sonics to the Stooges. It makes sense: the proto-punk Sonics contributed a more aggressive tempo, and the Stooges, well, they speak for themselves.
But when you turn on a Little Richard song, it's the sheer wildness in his full use of his vocal range that sets him apart from his many magnificent contemporaries in that early era of rock. Bo Diddley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and the rockabilly progenitors all have claims on that era of origination, but no one injected unpredictability like Little Richard.
So here is his story in a nutshell, a book that also made David Bowie's list of all-time favorites. Rather than a traditional narrative, author Charles White has stitched together oral history collected from an impressive bevy of sources - including Little Richard himself. Only briefly does he interject narrative context, often for the purpose of moving us along through history. The effect is something like a VH1 retrospective in book form.
Which is just as well, because the scandal and largesse of Little Richard's career might as well be a made-for-TV tell-all. He's a blunt interviewee, a completely open book about all sorts of backstage antics. If you're holding on to even a shred of innocence in how you picture the lives of rock stars, even as early as the '50s, this book is a great way to jettison it.
One gets used to it quickly though, especially as we learn how wild of a child Little Richard was. The best music histories, no matter how salacious they might get, are the ones that capture the genuine excitement of the new. This book is no exception. The undercurrents of rebellion along the lines of sexuality and gender stereotypes are meticulously captured, as are the simply ludicrous details of Little Richard's costumes and stage antics.
The combined effect brings him to life as a performer. Reading how he unveiled himself in a suit decked out in little mirrors, or how he faked passing out live on stage only to go right into "Lucille" down on the ground, I could just feel the tension and audacious theatrics coming to life. When you hear a Little Richard radio staple even today, it's riveting how he uses every millimeter of his vocal chords, and he was the same type of performer: he went all-in.
As a history of popular music in the late '50s and beyond, this book also shows us a world where contracts were regularly unfair and usurious towards artists, often leaving them with peanuts. One of Little Richard's early records had to measure royalties in half-cent increments. It's part of how the world was, and often still is. We're shown how this reality was only exacerbated by the racial climate of Little Richard's heyday.
Living a life where the business end was frequently a raw deal, and where the temptations were shockingly high, Little Richard seems to have survived - and survived he did, having died only a few years ago in his late eighties - through constant reinvention. His biography doubles as a fascinating exploration of the ping-pong game between the lifestyle excess of a rockstar and the asceticism of religious piety.
More than once we follow Little Richard discover Jesus and quit the rockstar life, then return to it with wilder parties and harder drugs than ever, then become a church man again. Church and family are bedrocks that go hand-in-hand for him; it's hard to imagine him making it past the era that claimed Hendrix and Janis without stabilizing anchors. When Little Richard speaks about a series of sudden deaths of friends and loved ones, about how blindsided he was because of the addictive nature of the rockstar's hedonism, it's heart-breaking. His faith and his family are a huge part of how and why he, despite the obvious racial tension of his climb to fame, is adamant about his music transcending racial boundaries and unifying human beings everywhere: some of the loveliest and most memorable words of the book.
That said. We're also introduced to views Little Richard developed over time about his sexuality that, by contemporary standards, let's just say are Very Much No on the political correctness litmus test. I'm a big believer in studying people and their views as products of their time, and not censoring or retroactively "cleansing" reality. But I'd feel remiss not also dropping the caveat that potential readers who are turned off by proselytizing about "sinful" lifestyles ought to know ahead of time that some of the interviews with Little Richard find him doing exactly that. (Evergreen reminder: Capturing a character or real-life person's fallibility in writing is not the same thing as endorsing their views.)
As I mention one caveat for the star of the show, I'll dole out another for the author. While Charles White's narrative interludes do a nice job moving us through history, sometimes their aerial view is too high. Occasionally he mentions stuff like a wild show in France leading to a riot, with no elaborating details, in order to set up another lurch forward in time. But a wild show that causes a riot in France sounds like a pretty good punchline unto itself! If we aren't going to get those details in the authorized biography, where else will we?
A few other narrative interludes, conversely, inject pinches of editorialization the book might be better without. The author clearly holds that Little Richard is a relatively unsung hero - hard to argue there - and makes no mystery of being a bulldog on his behalf. There are a couple concerts White relays - one featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, one with John Lennon - where he bolsters this view through a narrative that casts the other stars as antagonists along racial lines. No doubt they were part of a system that could and did produce tremendously unfair results for black versus white artists.
But did it go beyond that, beyond the ordinary competitiveness and egotism of rockstars, into *personal* racial antipathy? One might believe "yes" or "no" earnestly and the author might have their own view. But we have it straight from the horse's mouth in this book, where more than once Little Richard decries any notion that other artists are villains who ripped him off. (All the other wheelers and dealers in the music industry, sure.) Here Little Richard's views are three-dimensional and nuanced, and for the author's narrative to advance Lewis and Lennon as racial villains feels like a step back from reality and an inappropriate use of the author's personal voice (it overrides the voice of the subject the very author presents, rightly, as a racial underdog).
It was a complex world, and from the business and racial climate to the jaw-dropping excess of Little Richard's backstage life, the grey zones come to life throughout this book. I had enough minor quibbles that it isn't my top choice for music biography, but there's no doubt that it's a riveting and worthwhile read. And as someone who's always tagged digital music meticulously, I have to tip my cap in appreciation of the super-detailed appendices the author included. They are superb chronicles of Little Richard's recording sessions and discography, obviously compiled out of pure love for the subject's career and music.
Parting words: a few of Little Richard's "first comeback" era songs were recorded with help from a studio guitarist, an ambitious young fellow by the name of Jimi Hendrix. Just one of many gems hidden throughout the immortal career of Little Richard!