Sunday, May 27, 2007

Little Richard


I've been looking a bit at Little Richard lately, because he's such a huge influence on rock, including such names as The Beatles and David Bowie.
I was never a huge fan of him, perhaps because I was born after his heyday. Also, while the music is good, something about his forced voice rubs me the wrong way.

This clip is from an old film, from the title it seems like it was meant to be a defence and promotion for rock music, not easy to do in the fifties. It is bizarre to see those well-dressed people sitting down, smiling, swinging, and clapping their hands to this noisy, rebellious, outrageous music. Anything to sugar-coat the rebellion.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So remember all would-be yes-men: don't try to rub Mr Stobblehouse if you're not sure which way is the correct way. :-)

Alternatively, you can just be yourselves. I know it may sound hard, but anybody can do it, really.

DreamingWolf said...

Well, it's not that bad with the audience in this clip: inspired by you, I watched also "Roll Over Beethoven" - the black-and-white version of the clip - by Chuck Berry (showing his famous "duck walk" in that clip) and the audience was much stiffer there... :-)