Little Richard was not the only
original rock & roller to attempt a comeback in the late '60s and
early '70s, but he may have been the one to take the greatest musical
risks. Fats Domino merely updated his sound (albeit in a charming
fashion), Jerry Lee Lewis refashioned himself as a hardcore country
singer, and Chuck Berry pandered with "My Ding-A-Ling," but Little
Richard pushed himself on his three albums for Reprise, all of which
were collected -- along with his contributions to Quincy Jones' 1972
Dollar$ soundtrack album, non-LP singles, session outtakes, and a
complete unreleased album from 1972 called Southern Child -- in 2005 by
Rhino Handmade for the triple-disc set The King of Rock and Roll.
Richard had been an active recording artist ever since the mid-'60s, when he had signed to Vee-Jay and cut effective but neglected soul singles, but the rock & roll revival of the late '60s gave him the opportunity to launch a splashy, big-budget comeback, and he seized it. Instead of serving up the expected high-energy rock & roll on his 1970 LP, The Rill Thing, he recorded an eclectic, wide-ranging album that touched on country, acoustic blues, hard-driving funk, soul, melodic pop, and rock & roll. While there were wah-wah guitars and electric sitars that clearly marked it as a product of its time, those production quirks fade into the background, since the range and accomplishment of the music are quite staggering. It's overpowering, but not in the familiar Little Richard fashion, where the boundless, reckless energy is the defining characteristic. Instead, The Rill Thing and the albums that followed it -- 1971's King of Rock 'n' Roll, 1972's The Second Coming, and the unreleased Southern Child -- all followed the same musical blueprint and aesthetic: Little Richard opened his music up, slowing things down on occasion, varied his arrangement and styles, and wrote powerful, memorable new songs, while carefully picking songs from Hank Williams, John Fogerty, and the Beatles to showcase the scope of his music. Sure, there still was the familiar piledriving rock & roll, but it was part of a mosaic of American roots music that proved that Little Richard could do it all -- rock, pop, country, blues, soul, gospel, funk -- and do it his own way. There were the occasional missteps -- the instrumental jams all stretch out too long -- but they were rare. On the whole, his Reprise work was all-encompassing, fully realized, and -- in its own way -- as exciting as his timeless work for Specialty. And that's why The King of Rock and Roll isn't just essential for any serious student of rock & roll, it's one of the few reissues of this decade that can truly be called revelatory.
Disc One :
01. Freedom Blues
02. Greenwood, Mississippi
03. Two-Time Loser
04. Dew Drop Inn
05. Somebody Saw You
06. Spreadin' Natta, What's The Matter
07. The Rill Thing
08. Lovesick Blues
09. I Saw Her Standing There
10. Shake A Hand (If You Can)
11. Money Is
12. Do It-To It
13. King Of Rock And Roll
14. Joy To The World
15. Brown Sugar
16. In The Name
17. Dancing In The Street
18. Midnight Special
19. The Way You Do The Things You Do
Disc Two:
01. Green Power
02. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
03. Settin' The Woods On Fire
04. Born On The Bayou
05. Mockingbird Sally
06. Second Line
07. It Ain't What You Do, It's The Way How You Do It
08. The Saints
09. Nuki Suki
10. Rockin' Rockin' Boogie
11. Prophet Of Peace
12. Thomasine
13. Sanctified, Satisfied Toe-Tapper
14. In The Name (Version 2)
15. Why Don't You Love Me
16. Settin' The Woods On Fire (Instrumental)
17. Mississippi (Instrumental)
18. Still Miss Liza Jane
19. Open Up The Red Sea
Disc Three:
01. California (I'm Comin')
02. If You Pick Her Too Hard (She Comes Out Of Tune)
03. Burning Up With Love
04. Ain't No Tellin'
05. Last Year's Race Horse (Can't Run In This Year's Race)
06. Southern Child
07. In The Name (Version 3)
08. Over Yonder
09. I Git A Little Lonely
10. Puppy Dog Song
11. In The Name (Version 4, Take 1, False Start)
12. In The Name (Version 4, Take 2)
13. In The Name (Version 4, Take 3)
14. Sneak The Freak
15. Radio Spot A
16. Radio Spot B
