Post a controversial music opinion

i wonder if nile rodgers would have done something cool with TP & the HB. something slinkier. they could do slinky. they knew how to create good grooves. might have just come out like mick solo though. ooh, bill laswell! instead of dave stewart. that would have been weird.

of all the music we could be shitting on and you guys are choosing Little Richard

honking sax r&b and piano-bashing rockers

lol more of this pls

oops that was for the tom petty thread. my last post.

Favourite Carl Perkins is "Dixie Fried." I've mentioned this before: I think certain iconic '50s songs--"Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Great Balls of Fire," "That'll Be the Day" too, not among my Holly favourites--were ruined for me by the barrage of K-Tel commercials in the early '70s when they started compiling that stuff during the revival craze. They became reduced to two-second snippets of their titles, heard hundreds of times. "Johnny B. Goode" may have been one of those songs, but that somehow escaped a similar fate with me--and all of Berry's other greatest songs were not part of that, and I don't remember Bo Diddley being part of that either.

Slippin' and Slidin' so great that might be my fav Lil Rich

Ooh yes Dixie Fried is good. Before finding Carl Perkins at the public library, my whole life I had been searching for music that sounded like the three little pigs band in that old cartoon about the big bad wolf and for me, Carl Perkins is IT

My fave Lil Richard is def Rip it Up and Jenny Jenny

Bo was more a minor player in the context of the 50s, I think. He was so ahead of his time, and such a thing for the Brit invasion, but I don't think he was as much in the mind of the K-Tel target audience.

The 80s Atlantic R&B 1947-1974 comps are great, confined to the Atlantic sound, but flow through the years in a satisfying way.

This was probably the biggest culprit among those albums (plus a second volume)--there were others, too.

https://www.discogs.com/release/3606514-Various-25-Rock-Revival-Greats

Surprised that Holly isn't on there at all--licensing, I guess--and Bo Diddley is (he must have been bypassed for the commercials). "One-two-three o-clock..." "Hello, baybee..." "Goodness gracious..." drilled into my brain forever. And yet, I still love "Mission Bell" and "Book of Love," and other songs on there weren't hurt too much. So arbitrary. (What in the world are the Dave Clark Five doing on there?)

Listen to Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps, especially with Cliff Gallup, that's all I'm here to say.

i love gene and eddie. even the ballads.

it has often been said that the world is made up of two kinds of people. tittyshaker mod dancers. and the other kind. i think i'm the other kind. i don't need this a lot. swanky as it is. some people can listen all day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF1R2m4W_cI

i'm more northern popcorn garage.

The Hamburg '64 live set is the only Jerry Lewis I need though I quite like the country comeback records from the late 60s early 70s.

really really really hard to sell: ray charles records. one of those legends that is hard to sell. some legends are! i mean, ella fitzgerald and tony bennett are legends, right? barbra streisand? dollar bin legend. actually, free bin legend.

I wonder what it is about them, maybe a bit too mainstream showbiz in style or in reputation?

I mean I know there's not much that's underground or cool about any of them, in the senses of those terms that would translate to better sales.

I mean I think Ray and Ella are pretty cool but I can objectively understand why others might not think so based on various factors.

that whole era of ray charles always showing up on awards shows to sing georgia on my mind, the whole pepsi commercial thing then the movie made him an widely recognized icon but maybe obscured how important he was musically.

He was even on an episode of Who’s The Boss! Never forget “Always a Friend”

i just remembered the Ray Charles California Raisins commercials

xpost i don't remember that! wild

i own nice mono copies of Genius + Soul = Jazz and Ray Charles At Newport. they are hot stuff. all that early ray on atlantic stuff sounds so good on vinyl and its so cheap. i can't say i listen to the stuff on ABC. he put out a lot of records.

re: Ray, I get by with this one now:
https://www.discogs.com/release/2335584-Ray-Charles-A-25th-Anniversary-In-Show-Business-Salute-To-Ray-Charles

(one LP of Atlantic stuff, one of ABC)

A Christgau A+: "In a remarkable show of benevolent corporate cooperation..." Took me a few years to find a vinyl copy in the '80s.

there's definitely good stuff on the ABC records but you have to dig for them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5I9tn2jxGs

re Little Richard - he was the one artist that I had in common with my late mother-in-law. she'd grown up in the Glenn Miller era and didn't like much "modern" music, but she did like that Little Richard

that whole era of ray charles always showing up on awards shows to sing georgia on my mind, the whole pepsi commercial thing then the movie made him an widely recognized icon but maybe obscured how important he was musically.

similarly true of Little Richard, maybe Tony Bennett, too. Anyone who appeared in a tv commercial or as a guest star on a family sitcom in the 80s or 90s. That level of exposure hasn't seemed to hurt Dolly much, though

Dolly's a generation removed from them...Boomers take care of their own.

Richard still seemed strange to me as a kid, he was always so funny and bitchy and camp, he didn't seem respectable

like even to my cornfed little rube mind I could tell there was something going on with him

huh in nyc i translated not as un-respectable, but yeah campy and on-stage, but also hokey and corny like liberace.

i meant that in a good way, like he didn't seem like a chummy industry snooze kinda way

I grew up on a farm wtf did I know

I know I've posted this before but my old publisher used to work for a pretty music promoter here and when I asked her the worst experience she ever had dealing with a musician she instantly said Ray Charles, apparently he was cussing her out about something dumb and called her the "c word"

i mean even tho LR was obviously a queen, i think that the LGBTQ community’s absolute idolatry of Dolly has something to do with her longevity and popularity

Parton continuing to record and artists covering her songs helped too.

My acquaintance with Ray Charles began with the Jackson 5 cartoon where the pet mice were named "Ray" and "Charles." Then he sang his ass off in "We Are the World." Sang "America the Beautiful" for the uncomprehending Reagans. Did the "Right One Baby!" commercials for Pepsi. It took years, maybe the release of the better-than-you-think biopic Ray for me to start buying his stuff. Those early singles are feral. And well into the late '60s he'd send a song into the top 40 that flattened me with its concision and range of expression.

listening to the History of Rock Music in 500 songs this year has really given me a better appreciation of all the early R&B and rock n roll stuff

the reason so many people love dolly is because she plays all angles probably better than anyone else in music ever has or ever will

even if LR had wanted to do that he couldn't for obvious and maybe less obvious reasons

but I like fats way more than any other 50s rocker and it always seems like he gets faulted for being too nice or something? idgi

who faults him?

rock guys

the chapter on LR in John Waters's ROLE MODELS is one of my favorite tributes to him. definitely captures how he could've been perceived as dangerous and irreverent on sonics alone

I kind of think if LR had never released anything but Long Tall Sally he would still be one of the greatest 50s rockers.

Paul McCartney sang the hell out of "Long Tall Sally."

There’s a live McCartney performance of Long Tall Sally from 1986 with Prince Charles and Diana dancing in the audience and what appears to be about seven guitarists on stage, including Mark Knopfler doing a duck walk for some reason. Surprisingly it’s not terrible.

now that i am so terribly old i sit in my rocking chair and listen to bluesy stuff sometimes. it had to happen. i love chess records. they put out so many amazing singles. i love that blues/r&b hybrid of the 50s. it sounds so good to me. and its endless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvCzAhGb5r4

also all that awesome new orleans stuff i never listened to when i was younger. sorry, fats! the swampier the better. and the big names. ernie k. doe. clarence henry. lee dorsey. but cajun stuff too. and new orleans blues is the bomb. you know who doesn't get enough love anymore? lloyd price! he was so cool. nobody will buy a lloyd price album. sad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYO263wui1w

[WARNING: EXTREME HIPSTER POSTURING FORTHCOMING]
so with as much hype as that maruja garbage gets, slovenly is partially on streaming now so the kids have known better all along.

[TRANSLATION TO NON-SNOB SPEECH FORTHCOMING]
i believe one of the most hyped bands of recent years -maruja- is essentially following the blueprint slovenly laid down on their sst albums back in the 80s. now that slovenly's catalogue is partially on streaming, TIME FOR FLOWERS TO GET DELIVERED. i mean dang: they even put the longform bonus track from we shoot for the moon on there. the kids always like this kind of music (chamber math jazzcore?) and it's literally going in a circle at this point.

[DISCLAIMER: i think maruja is pretty good, btw. difficult listen, but always engaging+rewarding.]