Little Richard

The newly released album "Masters of Folk Presents Little Richard (2024 Remastered)" showcases a collection of some of Little Richard's most iconic songs, meticulously remastered to enhance their original sound quality. This album is part of an effort to bring Little Richard's timeless music to a new generation of listeners while preserving the raw energy and spirit of the original recordings.

Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Nicknamed "The Innovator, The Originator, and The Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk, respectively. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come.

Contains all three original albums released by Specialty Records in 1957 - "Here's Little Richard", 1958's - "Little Richard, Volume 2", and 1959's "The Fabulous Little Richard", re-released on CD in 1989 by Ace Records. These are non-Remastered, direct digital transfer from an original master tapes.

Little Richard (* December 5, 1932 in Macon, Georgia, as Richard Wayne Penniman; † May 9, 2020 in Tullahoma, Tennessee) was an American rock ’n’ roll singer, pianist and songwriter. During the most successful phase of his career at Specialty Records in the mid-1950s, the African-American musician combined stylistic elements from blues, gospel and rhythm and blues under the new genre designation "rock'n'roll" and thus transferred them into the musical mainstream.

All 24 timeless classics that comprise the entirety of 1957's Here's Little Richard and 1958's Little Richard are here, each remastered from the original master tapes. For the first time, the sheer exuberance, ferocious urgency, and joyous passion of all of the singer's moans, screams, yelps, shouts, whoos, and impromptu interjections come alive with high-voltage detail and colorful immediacy. This is as explosive, engaging, and lively as early Rock N' Roll can sound.

Of the great artists from the first era of rock & roll, few were as powerful and exciting as Little Richard, and no one bested his magnetism and flamboyance.

In January of 1973 Little Richard went to Muscle Shoals to record an album’s worth of material on the heels of his successful releases for Reprise Records. Unfortunately, the material was only ever released in the US in 1973 on United Records and then again in France in 1975 on Musidisc. The album hasn’t been reissued properly on its own since, making this special pressing, available first on Record Store Day, the first appearance of this material since the ‘70s! Included among the tracks are Little Richard’s covers of “Chain Of Fools” and “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay,” plus fresh takes on songs he cut during his tenure at Reprise, “Greenwood, Mississippi” (from 1970’s The Rill Thing) and “In The Name” (from 1971’s King Of Rock And Roll and 2020’s Southern Child).

These are not the original Specialty recordings that made Little Richard famous as rock's original wildman; rather, they're late '70s stereo remakes of uncertain provenance (there are no musician or producer credits here). In any case, if you're looking for modern versions of these songs, you could do a lot worse. Whoever the musicians are, they've got that '50s New Orleans R&B groove down cold, particular the annonymous drummer and sax player, who do superb recreations of Lee Allen and Earl Palmer, Richard's original back up. The star himself is in excellent voice, if not quite as, er, out there as in his youth.

In 1966 Little Richard signed to OKeh Records who teamed him up with Larry Williams in an attempt to reposition Little Richard as a mainstream soul proposition. The first single, Poor Dog, featuring Johnny 'Guitar' Watson, and its follow up, The Commandments Of Love, lived up to their hopes, updating his musical sound and putting him back in the R&B Top 50. A third US single, I Don't Want To Discuss It, later covered by Delaney And Bonnie and Rod Stewart, was less successful as Little Richard was touring in the UK when it came out.