Redtree Times

I spent way too much time this morning trying to figure out this blog entry.  I started writing several things going in several different directions and they all ended up in the dumper. Got to the point that I wasn’t going t post anything.

Now that’s no big deal for anybody out there. Big deal, right? But it’s part of my routine now, an idiosyncrasy that I cling to. So, I had to do something or it would nag at me all day. I was listening to some music and thought maybe I should listen to something pure, something that seemed at the beginning of something, something that seemed unique.

How about some Little Richard, I thought. Unique and definitely at the forefront, the beginning, of rock and roll. Might even be the match that lit the whole stick of dynamite. I don’t think he ever got the credit due to him for his incredible performances that became part of the DNA of future artists.

It made me think about artists of all sorts, not just musicians. We are all a synthesis of our influences and favorites. We take what we see or hear or feel and mix them into a stew that sometimes seems so unique that it doesn’t fully display all the ingredients that went into its making. That’s the goal.

Some of us will always show our influences and that’s okay. Hard not to. But some becomes something new altogether. I think that’s how it was for Little Richard. I am sure he was influenced by Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris and so many of the other jump blues artists of the 1940’s. But he took it and kicked it up a notch, added an uninhibited wildness that most artists can’t reach. Most simply don’t have it in them. I certainly wish I had it.

Little Richard stood out and 65 years later his stuff still stirs something wild inside the listener. He did what an artist is supposed to do. He created and moved people.

Okay, enough. I got to get to my own work now. Here’s the great late Little Richard who passed away this past year, in that awful 2020. at the age of 87. Same age as my old man when he died this past year. I think he appreciated Little Richard, recognized that same wildness even if he displayed it in different ways.

Here’s Keep a Knockin’.