Rock'n'roll at its most rebellious

Young people, when listening to early rock'n'roll records by such as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, often wonder what all the fuss was about. Of course, they were revolutionary compared to what went before, but they were tame compared to Little Richard. Listen to this collection of hard driving rock'n'roll (or even just a couple of tracks) and you'll understand what I mean.



Many of Little Richard's classic songs have been covered by a variety of different artists in the years since. It will surprise many people to learn that Pat Boone was very quick to cover Little Richard's songs when both were just getting started. Pat's versions of Tutti fruity and Long tall Sally were not wild like Richard's, but nevertheless became big American hits for Pat, who later focused on ballads so most people forgot about his rock'n'roll songs.



Apart from Tutti fruit and Long tall Sally, Little Richard recorded other great songs such as Lucille (an international hit for the Everly Brothers in the sixties), Rip it up, Jenny Jenny, The girl can't help it, Good golly Miss Molly (a sixties UK hit for the Swinging blue jeans) and many other hard rocking songs.



In the UK, Little Richard had five top ten hits, another hit that just missed the top ten and several lesser hits, but his biggest UK hit (number two) was with a cover of Baby face, a song that was already over forty years old when Little Richard recorded it.



This collection contains all of the wild man's classics from the fifties, plus Bama lama bama loo, his 1964 comeback hit.