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By the end of the 1960s, it was reasonable to assume that Little Richard\u2019s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll career was moribund. Though he was one of music\u2019s most important figures, by 1958 he had forsaken secular music in favor of gospel. And while he would return to rock in the \u201860s, too often he and his work paled when weighed against his prime-era output.<\/p>\n
But buoyed by the rapturous reception he received onstage at 1969\u2019s Toronto Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll Revival festival \u2013 sharing a bill with John Lennon\u2019s Plastic Ono Band, Chuck Berry and others \u2013 the man born Richard Penniman suddenly entered a new creative phase. The oft-abused word comeback<\/i> would truly apply with regard to 1970\u2019s The Rill Thing<\/i>, Little Richard\u2019s finest recorded offering in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Some of Little Richard\u2019s \u201860s era albums featured Motown-style production; clearly, the style wasn\u2019t a good fit. But for The Rill Thing<\/i> \u2013 his first album with Reprise Records \u2013 he would draw upon a much rawer aesthetic: the Stax\/Muscle Shoals sound. Recorded at legendary FAME Studios and with a musical style closer to Otis Redding, The Rill Thing<\/i> rocks hard, and the more soulful sensibility of the record meshes well with Richard\u2019s outsize, unbridled vocal approach.<\/p>\n
The rock-solid bass lines that anchor tracks like \u201cFreedom Blues\u201d \u2013 released as a single, and representing Little Richard\u2019s first singles chart appearance in several years \u2013 are a defining characteristic of The Rill Thing<\/i>. With its stinging lead guitar (courtesy of Travis Wammack), \u201cGreenwood, Mississippi\u201d delivers with the bravado and gusto of any Ike and Tina Turner single of the era.<\/p>\n
Occasional backing vocals support Little Richard\u2019s assertive, howling lead vocals; his performance is frequently punctuated by \u201cwoooo!\u201d screams, and he seems completely at home in blues shouter mode as the crack ensemble tears out the riff-heavy \u201cTwo-Time Loser.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1968, Fats Domino had covered The Beatles\u2019 \u201cLady Madonna\u201d to good effect, good-naturedly underscoring the debt the Beatles (Paul McCartney in particular) owed him. Because Little Richard was an even bigger influence on McCartney \u2013 something Penniman never missed the opportunity to remind audiences \u2013 it made good sense to cover \u201cI Saw Her Standing There.\u201d In Little Richard\u2019s hands, the early Beatles tune positively sizzles; he truly makes it own. Beefy horns up the musical ante even further.<\/p>\n
Even when he revisits his \u201850s style, Richard fares quite well. With a throwback arrangement that somehow still sounds fresh and new, The Rill Thing<\/i>\u2019s recording of \u201cDew Drop Inn\u201d is a highlight among uniformly fine material.<\/p>\n
Yet as strong as Little Richard\u2019s vocal performances are throughout The Rill Thing<\/i>, some of the album\u2019s most compelling moments come when he\u2019s not even singing. At more than ten minutes, the instrumental title track is every bit as funky as Isaac Hayes, as groovy as Stevie Wonder. No detailed session information exists for the album, but it\u2019s generally accepted that Penniman took to the ivories during the recording of \u201cThe Rill Thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Omnivore Recordings reissue of this overlooked yet essential gem includes four bonus tracks that originally appeared as singles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the end of the 1960s, it was reasonable to assume that Little Richard\u2019s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll career was moribund. Though he was one of music\u2019s most important figures, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20051,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,62,64,65,69],"tags":[1325,1622],"class_list":["post-20050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rb","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-soul","tag-little-richard","tag-omnivore-recordings","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20052,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20050\/revisions\/20052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}