Elton John called Richard “without doubt... my biggest influence. Seeing him live in my teens was the most exciting event in my life at that point.”
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFEntertainer Little Richard performs at the Crossroad festival in Gijon, northern Spain, July 23, 2005.(photo credit: REUTERS/ALONSO GONZALEZ)
Tributes to the late rock & roll pioneer Little Richard poured in over the weekend, after his death was announced at age 87.“I just heard the news about Little Richard and I’m so grieved,” Bob Dylan wrote. “He was my shining star and guiding light, back when I was only a little boy. His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything I would do.”Dylan continued, “I played some shows with him in Europe in the early nineties, and got to hang out in his dressing room a lot. He was always generous, kind and humble. And still dynamite as a performer and a musician, and you could still learn plenty from him. In his presence he was always the same Little Richard that I first heard and was awed by, growing up, and I always was the same little boy. Of course, he’ll live forever. But it’s like a part of your life is gone.”In Dylan’s high school yearbook in 1959, then-senior Robert Zimmerman wrote that his life ambition was “to join Little Richard.” The Star Tribune reported, Dylan even attempted to emulate Little Richard’s imitable performing style during his first-ever public performance, at a Hibbing High School talent show in 1957.Born Richard Penniman, Richard died of bone cancer in Tullahoma, Tennessee.At his peak in the 1950s and early ’60s, Richard shouted, moaned, screamed and trilled hits like “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille,” all the while pounding the piano like a madman and punctuating lyrics with an occasional shrill “whoooo!” He sold more than 30 million records worldwide.“I am the originator!” he said, while receiving a standing ovation at the 1988 Grammy Awards.The New York Times wrote that although he didn’t invent rock & roll, Little Richard, “delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before – something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous.Mick Jagger said that Little Richard had “contributed so much to popular music,” adding that he would “watch his moves” to learn from them while they toured together.Little Richard was “the biggest inspiration of my early teens,” and his music still has “the same raw electric energy when you play it now as when it first shot through the music scene in the mid ’50s”, he added.Elton John called Richard “without doubt... my biggest influence. Seeing him live in my teens was the most exciting event in my life at that point.”Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said that his songs “pioneered Rock & Roll,” and Elvis Costello urged people to play the song “Rip It Up” “very loud” as a tribute to the singer. “Then play it again. There’s nothing anyone can say that says it better.”Speaking in 2002, Little Richard said: “Paul [McCartney] would watch me every night when I was up on stage. Paul idolized me and admired my energy.”“The way you see Mick Jagger and Tina Turner walk all over the stage is what I used to do. That’s where they all got it from.”Reuters contributed to this report.
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