What say you? I'm just happy they're still alive.

Chuck Berry

Well actually they both are but in different ways. Chuck provided the musical background and Richard provided the zany funky vocals/music/attitude.

[Edited 4/26/13 22:12pm]

It's a whole lot of people, not one or the other.

However, I prefer Chuck Berry as a songwriter, and Little Richard as a singer

NDRU said:

It's a whole lot of people, not one or the other.

However, I prefer Chuck Berry as a songwriter, and Little Richard as a singer

Right. I would include Elvis, Bill Haley, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ike Turner in that list too. And maybe more (like Big Joe Turner and Clyde McPhatter).

Timmy84 said:

Louis Jordan...



...Ain't That Just Like A Woman (1946) & Saturday Night Fish Fry (1949)

Carl Hogan is the guitarist on the first clip and James "Ham" Jones on the second.

Well, the guitar is the instrument most associated with rock and roll and Chuck is arguably the first "guitar hero," at least in rock music. Chuck was probably a bigger influence than Little Richard but they are both fantastic.

Chuck was also a great songwriter and storyteller. His songs are very simple and he did repeat himself but that simplicity was a great strength.

As a singer he was not the best but certainly more than good enough for his genre.

This is far from rock and roll but I would have loved for Chuck to have done a whole album of standards like this:

It stinks that by the mid/late sixties that both of their careers were reduced to being "oldies" acts. Chuck was maybe repeating himself too much and Little Richard was struggling to find great material but as performers they were both still at or near their prime. If circumstances had been just a little different they could have continued having hits well into the seventies (no, "My Ding a Ling" does not count!).

SuperSoulFighter said:

And don't forget Buddy Holly!!!!

Him too. I actually forgot about Louis Jordan lol add Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown too.

rialb said:

Well, the guitar is the instrument most associated with rock and roll and Chuck is arguably the first "guitar hero," at least in rock music. Chuck was probably a bigger influence than Little Richard but they are both fantastic.

Chuck was also a great songwriter and storyteller. His songs are very simple and he did repeat himself but that simplicity was a great strength.

As a singer he was not the best but certainly more than good enough for his genre.

This is far from rock and roll but I would have loved for Chuck to have done a whole album of standards like this:

It stinks that by the mid/late sixties that both of their careers were reduced to being "oldies" acts. Chuck was maybe repeating himself too much and Little Richard was struggling to find great material but as performers they were both still at or near their prime. If circumstances had been just a little different they could have continued having hits well into the seventies (no, "My Ding a Ling" does not count!).

I think they also played a part in their demise as hitmakers in a certain way. With Chuck, jail time soured his appeal (though it's stated that because of the times - I don't think there was much evidence to support that accusation he had of sending a teen girl through state lines) and then his own behavior post-jail affected matters as well as changing times in the industry plus he was seen as "really old" to new rock listeners. Little Richard leaving rock and roll for gospel really destroyed his hit making days. His attempts to come back were futile at best and since he influenced James Brown and Otis Redding, they tried to make him like them (a soul artist), which Richard fought against. And he was also considered "old". Plus when you make a record like "I'm the King of Rock and Roll" at a time when the legends of rock weren't as established as it is now, you're not gonna convince anyone:

Muddy

The blues did have a baby

As much as I love Chuck Berry and Little Richard, I think that Fats Domino (who I also love) started what would later be known as rock 'n' roll first with his boogie woogie piano style.

Muddy and Fats definitely sowed its seeds... I guess it'll be fair to add B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf.

Little Richard famously said "rhythm and blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll".

Timmy84 said:

Muddy and Fats definitely sowed its seeds... I guess it'll be fair to add B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf.

Little Richard famously said "rhythm and blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll".

Yeah to be honest I think that the rhythm and blues at the time and rock 'n' roll was musically very similar, with very little differences. The biggest difference was in the attitude I think.

MiniJamesW said:

Timmy84 said:

Muddy and Fats definitely sowed its seeds... I guess it'll be fair to add B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf.

Little Richard famously said "rhythm and blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll".

Yeah to be honest I think that the rhythm and blues at the time and rock 'n' roll was musically very similar, with very little differences. The biggest difference was in the attitude I think.

Yeah. Rhythm and blues was the younger son of blues actually (and a cousin of gospel, swing and jazz). It just had a rougher edge. To be fair, around 1949, if the music was harder than R&B, they called it "rocking music". So it's indication they were starting to use "rock and roll" as another name for R&B around then. Hey, Alan Freed start saying that music was "rock and roll" in 1951 and it was from people like Fats anyway.

Little Richard invented R&R by taking the r&b of Fats Domino and speed the freaking tempo up.

.

The End.

MiniJamesW said:

As much as I love Chuck Berry and Little Richard, I think that Fats Domino (who I also love) started what would later be known as rock 'n' roll first with his boogie woogie piano style.

THIS!^

TonyVanDam said:

Little Richard invented R&R by taking the r&b of Fats Domino and speed the freaking tempo up.

.

The End.

Uh...not quite.

This song predated "Tutti Frutti" and I think it's a good contender:



Richard however did start something with all those crazy scats (which I believe he got from Cab Calloway though he won't admit that ).

Little Richard always contended "Tutti Frutti" was an "accident". He's told different stories of how he came up with those "a wop bop a lu mop a lop bop bop/bam boom" scats. One story he told was he got the scats from working as a dishwasher for Greyhound Lines and he didn't wanna wash the dishes so he would yell "a wop bop a lu bop get these dishes outta here!" Another story was that he was working on a drum pattern with his drummer and just said those words.

The famous story of how "Tutti Frutti" came together on September 14, 1955 was after a session in New Orleans proved to not be too satisfactory for Blackwell, who was not really pleased with Richard still trying to be a blues ballad singer. He took Richard to a club for a break and while there, Richard decided to entertain the audience there by singing "Tutti Frutti", which he had done a few times over the past year and a half. But it was a tongue-in-cheek humorous song with homosexual innuendo:

"Tutti frutti
Good booty
Tutti frutti

Good booty
If it don't fit
Don't force it
If it's greasy
Take it easy..."

Blackwell heard this and saw the audience's reaction and thought "now that's a hit" and then told Richard "we gotta record that."

But Richard was gung-ho: "Mr. Blackwell, I can't... the song's got some really filthy words."

Blackwell was unperturbed, he took Richard back to the studio and had Dorothy LaBostrie, a budding songwriter and a Blackwell pupil, in the studio and asked Richard to sing the song back to her. After she heard the song (which Richard sang with his back turned to her in embarrassment), she changed up the lyrics. And that's how you got "Tutti Frutti".

It only took three takes for the song to be recorded.

It was released in November 1955 and became a best-seller by February 1956.

Around the time he recorded the song that September, Chuck Berry already had his hit with "Maybellene", Bill Haley was one of the original rock and roll stars with hits like "Rock Around the Clock", "Crazy Man Crazy", "See You Later, Alligator" and his cover of "Shake, Rattle & Roll", Elvis Presley was a star in several Southern states after his recordings for Sun became hits (he signed with RCA at the same time "Tutti Frutti" came out), Jerry Lee Lewis was working odd jobs on weekdays while playing piano with his band on weekends struggling to find a recording deal, Bo Diddley had hits with "Bo Diddley" and "I'm a Man" (which Muddy Waters later took for "I'm a (Hoochie Coochie) Man", Ike Turner, four years into his career, was a popular attraction as leader of the Kings of Rhythm, Fats Domino had just broke through the mainstream with "Ain't That a Shame", Ray Charles was already an R&B hitmaker with "I Got a Woman" and "Hallelujah I Love Her So", Clyde McPhatter was in the Army but he already had made history with "Money Honey" with the Drifters, Little Willie John had a hit with "All Around the World", Sam Cooke was still in the Soul Stirrers, James Brown and the Famous Flames caught their big break that year with Richard's former manager, etc.

So a lot of things happened around that time.

Interestingly, Richard started out his career in ministrel shows and medicine showcases, sometimes performing in drag. When he started his career, it was as a doppleganger of Billy Wright and Roy Brown. If you hear his records pre-Tutti Frutti, they were random blues/jump blues recordings. His performances were different and were the reason he caught so much attention. Had Blackwell not convinced Richard to do "Tutti Frutti", the rock legend Little Richard wouldn't have happened.

[Edited 4/27/13 11:07am]

Timmy84 said:

TonyVanDam said:

Little Richard invented R&R by taking the r&b of Fats Domino and speed the freaking tempo up.

.

The End.

Uh...not quite.

This song predated "Tutti Frutti" and I think it's a good contender:



Richard however did start something with all those crazy scats (which I believe he got from Cab Calloway though he won't admit that ).

Tutti Frutti was faster, especially the original uncensored version.

A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-good-hot-damn!!

Tutti Frutti, good booty....

TonyVanDam said:

Timmy84 said:

Uh...not quite.

This song predated "Tutti Frutti" and I think it's a good contender:



Richard however did start something with all those crazy scats (which I believe he got from Cab Calloway though he won't admit that ).

Tutti Frutti was faster, especially the original uncensored version.

A-wop-bom-a-loo-mop-a-good-hot-damn!!

Tutti Frutti, good booty....

I know. But Richard didn't record the uncensored version. Richard wouldn't have wanted to record it in the original way anyway because he was kinda ashamed of it. He only did to please his gay audience.

Ironically the story of how Chuck Berry did his first hit, "Maybellene", was also accidental (in a way).

When Chuck Berry started his career in 1953 with the Johnnie Johnson Trio, he had already experienced a rough life. Though he grew up in a middle class family in St. Louis, he dropped out of high school at 17 and shortly afterwards was arrested for grand larceny (similar to James Brown's story in Augusta, Georgia). He served three years of his sentence and was released on his 21st birthday in 1947. Afterwards, he found work as a factory worker, a janitor and a hair beautician. By 1950-51, he began working with bands to find more income to support his family (a wife and two daughters, he had his only son in later years) and two years later worked with Johnnie Johnson at the St. Louis nightclub, Cosmo's.

What made Chuck different from other blues/R&B artists that performed at these clubs (including Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm) was that he always added country music to his set list. At first people would joke about "what's with this fool doing country man?" but after a while they loved it. It also attracted white audiences to the club so money was brought in to the club. Chuck and his band tried to record in St. Louis but there were little opportunities for St. Louis musicians to find work in labels and only after 1956 did St. Louis have a couple of record labels. In 1955, Chuck saw Muddy Waters perform at a club in Chicago and approached him about how can he get a deal with his label. Muddy told Chuck to contact Leonard Chess. Chuck sent a demo of his work to Leonard, who loved it enough to sign him. When they set up for their first recording, Chuck thought his R&B material won them over. Leonard loved his answer song to "Ida Red" ("Ida May") however and thought the sound of the song was what was needed to branch Chess out to diverse audiences.

In response, Chuck rewrote "Ida May" as "Maybellene" and put it out in July of 1955. In order to get a song to become a hit in those days, labels often work out deals with business managers and radio jockeys and as a result "Maybellene" was co-credited to Russ Fratto and Alan Freed. It took 30 years for Chuck to win full ownership of the song and remove Fratto's and Freed's names from the credits.

It took Chuck months before he finally had another hit with "Roll Over Beethoven". Chuck's extensive guitar playing and the melody of the song definitely did a lot to pioneer rock and roll in the same way Little Richard's piano banging and gospel screaming in "Tutti Frutti" did.

Timmy84 said:

rialb said:

Well, the guitar is the instrument most associated with rock and roll and Chuck is arguably the first "guitar hero," at least in rock music. Chuck was probably a bigger influence than Little Richard but they are both fantastic.

Chuck was also a great songwriter and storyteller. His songs are very simple and he did repeat himself but that simplicity was a great strength.

As a singer he was not the best but certainly more than good enough for his genre.

This is far from rock and roll but I would have loved for Chuck to have done a whole album of standards like this:

It stinks that by the mid/late sixties that both of their careers were reduced to being "oldies" acts. Chuck was maybe repeating himself too much and Little Richard was struggling to find great material but as performers they were both still at or near their prime. If circumstances had been just a little different they could have continued having hits well into the seventies (no, "My Ding a Ling" does not count!).

I think they also played a part in their demise as hitmakers in a certain way. With Chuck, jail time soured his appeal (though it's stated that because of the times - I don't think there was much evidence to support that accusation he had of sending a teen girl through state lines) and then his own behavior post-jail affected matters as well as changing times in the industry plus he was seen as "really old" to new rock listeners. Little Richard leaving rock and roll for gospel really destroyed his hit making days. His attempts to come back were futile at best and since he influenced James Brown and Otis Redding, they tried to make him like them (a soul artist), which Richard fought against. And he was also considered "old". Plus when you make a record like "I'm the King of Rock and Roll" at a time when the legends of rock weren't as established as it is now, you're not gonna convince anyone:

Chuck probably didn't change with the times enough. Well, he kind of tried that when he went to Mercury circa 1967-1969 but didn't have much success with it. Other than that brief period he didn't really change his sound much and that likely contributed to younger listeners thinking of him as being "old."

I do find it funny that most of the early British Invasion bands were nearly Chuck Berry cover bands but at the time he wasn't able to capitalise on it. For me some of his very best work was done circa 1964-1966. Those records were a bit more successful in England than they were in America but I still think that era is underappreciated. During that time he often adopted a slightly "harder" sound and to my ears that era stands up next to what the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the rest of the brits were doing.

That's a good point about Little Richard being pushed towards soul/r & b music. I think he could do that music great ("I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)" being a great example) but he definitely seemed a little lost when he tried to come back. I would have liked to see him land at Atlantic or Stax, maybe there he would have been given better material than what he got at Vee-Jay and Okeh?

MiniJamesW said:

As much as I love Chuck Berry and Little Richard, I think that Fats Domino (who I also love) started what would later be known as rock 'n' roll first with his boogie woogie piano style.

Fats is kind of tough to classify. He was kind of pop/r & b/rock and roll with something else that made his music unique. He was a little mellower and more laid back than most of his peers which makes it easy to forget how consistent he was. I recently acquired the five volumes collecting his Imperial singles from 1949-1964 and was happily surprised to find plenty of great songs that were not big hits and that you never hear on the radio.

rialb said:

Timmy84 said:

I think they also played a part in their demise as hitmakers in a certain way. With Chuck, jail time soured his appeal (though it's stated that because of the times - I don't think there was much evidence to support that accusation he had of sending a teen girl through state lines) and then his own behavior post-jail affected matters as well as changing times in the industry plus he was seen as "really old" to new rock listeners. Little Richard leaving rock and roll for gospel really destroyed his hit making days. His attempts to come back were futile at best and since he influenced James Brown and Otis Redding, they tried to make him like them (a soul artist), which Richard fought against. And he was also considered "old". Plus when you make a record like "I'm the King of Rock and Roll" at a time when the legends of rock weren't as established as it is now, you're not gonna convince anyone:

Chuck probably didn't change with the times enough. Well, he kind of tried that when he went to Mercury circa 1967-1969 but didn't have much success with it. Other than that brief period he didn't really change his sound much and that likely contributed to younger listeners thinking of him as being "old."

I do find it funny that most of the early British Invasion bands were nearly Chuck Berry cover bands but at the time he wasn't able to capitalise on it. For me some of his very best work was done circa 1964-1966. Those records were a bit more successful in England than they were in America but I still think that era is underappreciated. During that time he often adopted a slightly "harder" sound and to my ears that era stands up next to what the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the rest of the brits were doing.

That's a good point about Little Richard being pushed towards soul/r & b music. I think he could do that music great ("I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)" being a great example) but he definitely seemed a little lost when he tried to come back. I would have liked to see him land at Atlantic or Stax, maybe there he would have been given better material than what he got at Vee-Jay and Okeh?

Least Chuck tried. Little Richard seemed stuck between a rock and a hard place. The same sound that won him fame and helped him to boast his "I AM the architect, the emancipator, the originator" speeches also was the same sound that did him in. When he did try to do rock and roll in his way, it wasn't successful here but elsewhere ("Bama Lama Bama Loo" was a top 20 hit in the UK but bombed in America). Little Richard didn't particularly care for a soul-oriented horn section. He dealt with producers who thought they could mold him into a James Brown mold and he was having none of it. He would say "well I started James Brown but I can't be James Brown" and they didn't listen to him. He did record with Atlantic with his pseudo gospel material ("Crying in the Chapel") but it was only for that song I think. I think he wouldn't have fit in Stax considering another of his followers (Otis Redding) recorded for the label and was the top dog and Richard would be competing with Redding. So maybe that's why it was never considered for Richard to join Stax. Then again, his management at the time was really fucked up at the time. Also considering he got even more flamboyant and gender-bending as time went on so it was hard to promote him too.

rialb said:

MiniJamesW said:

As much as I love Chuck Berry and Little Richard, I think that Fats Domino (who I also love) started what would later be known as rock 'n' roll first with his boogie woogie piano style.

Fats is kind of tough to classify. He was kind of pop/r & b/rock and roll with something else that made his music unique. He was a little mellower and more laid back than most of his peers which makes it easy to forget how consistent he was. I recently acquired the five volumes collecting his Imperial singles from 1949-1964 and was happily surprised to find plenty of great songs that were not big hits and that you never hear on the radio.

That's actually a good point... "Fat Man" could be considered 12-bar blues. "Ain't That a Shame" and "I'm Walkin'" were probably his best rockers. And "Blueberry Hill" and "I'm in Love Again" were pop numbers. So he was out there in diversity compared to, say, Richard.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Something we have to remember here: a lot of the 50s rock & roll fans didn't like it at all when their heroes tried to keep up with the times. Little Richard made some good soul music, but his fans would have none of it. We experience that right here on the org, don't we? Some folks want Prince to sound like it's still 1987.

I think Little Richard still had an identity crisis in the '60s and '70s. It was more than just doing music his fans didn't approve of. The times changed too drastically for him to fit in.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Something we have to remember here: a lot of the 50s rock & roll fans didn't like it at all when their heroes tried to keep up with the times. Little Richard made some good soul music, but his fans would have none of it. We experience that right here on the org, don't we? Some folks want Prince to sound like it's still 1987.

Speaking for myself, the Prince I miss the most musically was between 1978 (For You) and 1997 (The Crystal Ball/The Truth). Anything after 1997, with good exceptions to Musicology & 3121, forget about it.