{"id":29185,"date":"2025-04-11T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=29185"},"modified":"2025-06-19T08:09:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T12:09:42","slug":"ep-review-little-richard-try-some-of-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/ep-review-little-richard-try-some-of-mine\/","title":{"rendered":"EP Review: Little Richard \u2013 Try Some of Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By 1968, in some quarters, at least, Richard Penniman was considered well past his sell-by date. The man known to the world as Little Richard had already undergone more than his share of ups and down, rises and falls, ins and outs with the world of pop music. By the later part of the \u201860s he was once again playing the chitlin\u2019circuit. And while another rebound was soon to come \u2013 in 1969 he\u2019d guest on the Monkees\u2019 uber-weird TV special 33-1\/3 Revolutions Per Monkee<\/i> and steal the show at the Toronoto Pop Festival<\/a> \u2013 in 1968, things really weren\u2019t happening for him.<\/p>\n

But Richard wasn\u2019t idle. In 1968 he was signed to Brunswick Records, and recorded a handful of sides. Detailed information isn\u2019t readily available, but apparently those six tracks were released as singles at the time as three A- and three B-sides. The tracks don\u2019t seem to have been compiled onto any LPs, but don\u2019t take my guess on that score as gospel.<\/p>\n

In any event, for Record Store Day 2025, Org Music has brought together those half-dozen tracks from what at the time seemed a fallow period for Little Richard, and pressed them onto a shocking-pink 12″ LP record. The disc \u2013 with the full title Try Some of Mine: the Brunswick Recordings<\/i> plays at 45 r.p.m., just like the original (and now-pricey) 45s did.<\/p>\n

Each of the original 45s was the product of its own session, so the six tracks come from sessions with three different producers. \u201cTry Some of Mine\u201d updates Richard\u2019s sound, but just a bit; it feels a lot like the music coming out of Memphis\u2019 Stax Records at the time. \u201cCan I Count On You\u201d is plenty funky, with lots of active bass and shaking tambourines. Richard dials back the \u201cwoooo!\u201d In favor of a soulful delivery closer to that of fellow legend Otis Redding. \u201cSoul Train\u201d engages in a bit of pilfering: its horn lick is straight outta \u201cI Can\u2019t Turn You Loose.\u201d But it\u2019s a raving performance nonetheless, and once again that (uncredited) bass work is simply on fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cStingy Jenny\u201d features some incendiary piano work (by Richard himself? Who knows?), and Richard\u2019s shouting is top-notch. The opening lead guitar on \u201cBaby Don\u2019t You Tear My Clothes\u201d is great, and some weird production choices make it a deeply unusual (and decidedly uncommercial) cut. It\u2019s here in what\u2019s noted as an \u201calternate mix\u201d suggesting that either the compilers gained access to the multi-track masters, or that an oddly 21st<\/sup> century-flavored mix was created in \u201868 and unused. Which is it? Again, no clue. The set wraps with a Penniman-Don Covay cowrite, \u201cShe\u2019s Together.\u201d A sprightly Stax-y number, it recalls Ray Charles.<\/p>\n

The six tunes blow by quickly; none exceeds the three-minute mark. But fifteen or so minutes spent with 1968-brand Little Richard is time well spent indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By 1968, in some quarters, at least, Richard Penniman was considered well past his sell-by date. The man known to the world as Little Richard had already undergone more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,60,62,73],"tags":[1325,1801],"class_list":["post-29185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rb","category-rawk","category-vinyl","tag-little-richard","tag-record-store-day","cat-49-id","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29185","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=29185"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29658,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29185\/revisions\/29658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}