Little Richard in his salad days.
Our lives, I believe, are marked by certain mileposts as we pass through the years: the many “firsts” we have as we live our time on earth. This is the story of one such first I had more than 6 decades ago. I offer props to Denise Oliver Velez in stirring up this wonderful memory I have.
In the 4th grade I started piano lessons given by one of the teachers, a Catholic nun, at my parish school in Daly City, CA. and who also doubled as the organist during Sunday 9 am Masses, which we little kids were required to attend as a whole class. Thankfully, I had been exposed to classical music early on and as I progressed in the piano my focus was entirely on the classical repertoire. My world was of Beethoven, Chopin, and Schubert, Bach, and (some of you older piano students will recall) John Thompson, Hanon and Czerny.
In the summer of 1956, Mom and Dad rented a duplex at South Lake Tahoe for a two week vacation. In June of that summer I turned the ripe old age of 13. In September I would start the 7th grade, now with three years of lessons at the piano under my belt.
1956 was our second such vacation there. The first one, three years before, had been cut somewhat short by the fact that Mom and Dad ran out of money gambling at the clubs in Stateline.
In the unit next to ours, a family from Sacramento was also staying. They had a daughter, Julie, who, when I saw her for the first time, I became absolutely smitten with. She was wearing a kind of halter top which displayed her budding womanhood. For some inexplicable reason (which I’ve since come to understand) I reacted to Julie like an ant drawn to honey.
Somehow, we met and spent significant time together: at the beach, or a local movie, or just hanging out on the porch we shared. Of course were just getting to know what we enjoyed in music and other such things that interest 7th graders. When I asked her who she listened to in records she said that her favorite was someone named Little Richard.
“Little Richard? Who’s he?” I asked.
“You’ve never heard of Little Richard? I quickly began to calculate that whatever interest in me Julie had was quickly fading.”
“No.” I sheepishly replied.
“Do you know ‘Tutti Frutti?’” I laughed at the words.
“Tutti Frutti!” What the heck is that?” Clearly I had some catching up to do. I was as square as they came and it was killing my suddenly ripening love life.
Then it happened. Once again we had to make an early departure. It seemed Mom and Dad did the same thing they did a couple of years earlier, which was to run out of money, compliments of Harvey’s Wagon Wheel and Harrah’s Club at Stateline.
I was as crestfallen as I could be. My time with the lovely Julie would soon come to an end. We exchanged addresses and wrote to each other for a brief while but I moved on to other, more local favorites. But not before I rushed to buy my first Little Richard 78 rpm single at Mr. DeLeon’s record shop. It was quickly followed up with a second single record. The rhythm, the screeching voice and “woo hoo’s” were absolutely infectious to me despite it being “jungle music” according to my father and mother.
In that same year, 1956, I believe a movie called "The Girl Can’t Help It" hit the screens, which featured Little Richard and a blond bombshell named Jayne Mansfield who was, well, considerably more developed, topside, than my unrequited love in Sacramento.
That’s when I saw Little Richard for the first time. He was a virtual madman, beating a grand piano almost to death, pounding out chords in groups of eighth notes like a machine gun; a Black guy with a mile-high pompadour, a pencil thin moustache, wearing a suit two sizes too large, playing the piano with his back to the keyboard or with a leg resting on the lid of the piano.
It was sacrilege. But it wasn’t! It was pure, unexpurgated, raw, three-chords-and-a-yell, rock ‘n roll like nothing I had ever heard. It was a complete awakening for this piano player who was more at home with a Beethoven sonata than with even Pat Boone, whom my mother adored.
As the years passed my record collection was about as eclectic as it could be. Mixed in with all the classical greats were Little Richard, “Fats” Domino, Chuck Berry, The Platters, Gene Vincent and Blue Caps, and a half dozen others. (Oddly, I never cared for Elvis that much. I owned only one of his records, “Hound Dog” which rarely got played.)
As I came into, and out of, puberty the memory of the heady days of those first teen years etched themselves into my brain and they still elicit a grin as I think about them. Little Richard’s music of overt sexuality, its relentless rhythm, and the sheer flamboyance of it influenced me and generations to come.
Thankfully, my appreciation and love of classical music never waned, so much so that I studied music in college and stayed with the piano well into my 20’s. I still play the old classical chestnuts but I also can wow my friends with a decent rendition of “Tutti Frutti,” “Send Me Some Lovin’” or “Blueberry Hill” at party.
As for my beloved Julie, I imagine she’s now a grandmother to a passel of grandkids in Sacramento and perhaps—just perhaps—remembers with a little smile that awkward kid she met at Lake Tahoe when she was 13. The kid who never heard of Little Richard.
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