Reviewed by Tony Cummings

If you know anything about popular music history you'll know that Little Richard Penniman was one of the pioneers of rock'n'roll. His string of hits like "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Rip It Up", "Slippin' And Slidin'" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" are quintessential highlights of '50s rock'n'roll and 50 years and more on still have the energising power of great rock art. There is something utterly thrilling about the original rock wild man screaming "a-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-wop-bam-boom" over those honking New Orleans sax riffs. If you're a fan of that era's music you'll probably have Richard's three albums 'Here's Little Richard' (1957), 'Little Richard' (1958) and 'The Fabulous Little Richard' (1959) which make up a good part of this budget line five CD box set, though here collectors will find "rarities" clumsily bolted on to the original albums' track listings. As well as his rock classics for Specialty Records what this particular compilation also offers is an insight into Richard's "gospel years", from 1957 to 1963. In a story which has now gone into rock'n'roll legend, in 1957 a plane taking Richard to some rock'n'roll concerts in Australia experienced engine difficulties and everyone on board thought it was going to crash. Richard, who had been brought up in the church, began to pray and "miraculously" the fire went out. Later, on Sydney Harbour Bridge, Richard, in an act of contrition, threw a diamond ring into the water and vowed he would quit show biz and follow Christ.

On returning to the States Richard turned his back on rock music and enrolled in a Bible college in Atlanta. For two or three years he recorded gospel music (including one unrecognised classic - the gospel ballad "Why Don't You Change Your Ways", sadly not on this compilation). But in Britain a new wave of fans, many of them listening to beat group versions of "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly Miss Molly", had emerged and when Richard made a trip to the UK he discovered there were legions of fans - Teddy boys and mods alike - eulogising this rock'n'roll originator. Thoughts of church ministry and gospel music were abandoned and Richard returned to rock'n'roll. Although he never quite got back the mega-stardom he'd once enjoyed in the '50s with his Specialty Records classics, he did regain some of his popularity as the original wild man of rock'n'roll. Now - thanks to them being out of copyright - this box set offers just about every recording Richard made in the '50s. They certainly had this ancient reviewer returning to his youth.

I first heard a batch of Little Richard's gospel recordings in the early '60s after they'd already fallen into a copyright black hole meaning that many record companies were re-issuing them and I bought a budget-line vinyl album. I knew the songs were gospel - titles like "Does Jesus Care" and "God Is Real" gave that game away. But after the frantic rock delights these recordings were hugely disappointing. Not only did they contain nothing of the adrenaline-pumping boogie rhythms and screamed vocals, the songs Richard had chosen to record were a mixture of traditional spirituals, covers of old gospel hits and a few originals with accompaniments that often consisted of just an organ and male and female backing singers and with no drummer, and certainly no honking saxes, in earshot. Most disappointing of all were Richard's vocals. Rather than utilising the frenzied screams the singer had undoubtedly learnt from hard gospel quartets like the Blind Boys Of Mississippi, the Sensational Nightingales et al for his rock'n'roll hits, he had reverted back to his natural tenor voice. That was effective enough when covering Georgia Peach's "Does Jesus Care" or the Trumpeteers' "Milky White Way" but neither they, nor his versions of Sally Martin, James Cleveland et al were in the same league as the originals. Just to confuse the musical picture even further, disc four of this package 'Pray Along With Little Richard' contains the four boogie blues tracks Little Richard recorded with Johnny Otis BEFORE his rock'n'roll stardom. 'Pray Along With Little Richard Vol 2' (disc five) has more of the gospel tracks cheaply recorded with New York record hustler George Goldner and they range from the ultra-corny "Troubles Of The World" to the fascinating two-part "I'm Quittin' Show Business".

Part One is a bluesily sung declaration that the singer had turned his back on the temptations of the showbiz world - though it would have been so much better with a full band rather than a sole organist - and most of Part Two is a powerful sermonette based on the Scripture "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul." Such pulpit oratory proves that Richard Penniman could have gone on to be a powerful churchman if only he'd been able to live out the words he preached. Instead, of course, hindsight informs us that not only did Richard quickly return to showbiz but tragically also returned to the sexual immorality and drug abuse of old. When one glimpses the heavily made-up and frankly grotesque figure of today's rock'n'roll nostalgia reviews it is impossible not to feel pity for a towering musical innovator. Listening to this box set with its rock'n'roll classics and gospel "rarities" one is left to ponder the dangers of letting go God's almighty hand once you have found it.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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