Quote:
Originally Posted by propbeanie
This guy is a Replacement:
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Actually, The Yardbirds had two notable replacements after Clapton decided The Yardbirds had strayed too far away from their Blues/R&B roots; for a very brief period of time both replacements played together in The Yardbirds:
The posting by eisenwurst of Chuck Berry's
Johnnie B Goode reminded me of a YT post I found about a couple of weeks ago. Now that Chuck is gone and, before him, Bo Diddley, the only one left of the Big 3 originators of R&R is Little Richard aka The Right Reverend Richard Penniman. I hadn't heard or seen anything about him for quite some time, so I did a quick look-up and found Richard has found religion (again);
Richard has had an on-again-off-again relationship with his religion, even though he is an actual ordained minister. Torn between faith and his desire to perform, he has wavered; once, he actually threw a very large amount of very expensive jewelry into a river during one of his returns to the pulpit...
I only saw him perform once, in the early to mid 70s, but he put on a spectacular show. While he was living in LA, and during one of his religious periods, he would have his limousine drive up and down Hollywood Blvd. or the Sunset Strip and have it stop when he saw some of the street kids congregating along the sidewalk; he would get out and minister to the kids, giving them tracts and directing them to various social service groups for assistance; he even would help them out with a few bucks, if they were really in desperate need...
I did see him up close once. There is a fast food place restaurant, an El Pollo Loco (Mexican style flame broiled chicken entrees) around the corner from my home. I went there a couple of decades ago and observed a stretch limousine in the parking lot adjacent, not an unusual sight in Hollywood. When I went in, there was a large gaggle of people at the order counter and, from their dress, I figured they were the people with the limousine. I got in line behind them, with my back to the door. A young couple walked by me and suddenly stopped, right next to me, looking towards the door, with very surprised looks on their faces. I turned around to see what they were looking at, and there, standing inconspicuously and very quietly and shyly in the corner, was Little Richard. The young couple ran up to him and he very graciously and humbly greeted them and listened to them gush over him; he signed autographs for them, spoke with them for a couple of minutes and then handed them a couple of religious tracts, wishing them a "God Bless You" as they left. He then returned to just standing quietly in the corner. I was so amazed, I continued to look at him and he caught my eye, smiled and said "God Bless You", quietly; I smiled back, gave him a nod of the head and turned back towards the order line. The limo was his and he had come to the restaurant to get meals for his company. I saw him again afterwards, occasionally, when he would be doing his ministry on the Hollywood streets, then he suddenly disappeared again..
Bo, Chuck, and Richard basically invented R&R: Bo gave it its beat and swagger; Chuck gave it words, wit, and melody; Richard gave it panache, showmanship and raucous joy. It is safe to say, without Little Richard, there would have been no Jimi Hendrix or Prince or any number of other stars; he even gave The Beatles their harmonized "Wooo" (not to mention McCartney's R&R vocal style), a debt fully acknowledged by the Fab Four...
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