Little Richard - The Indispensable Little Richard (1951-1962) (2015)

Of the great artists from the first era of rock & roll, few were as powerful and exciting as Little Richard, and no one bested his magnetism and flamboyance. Blessed with a singularly forceful voice (his piercing "Whooooo!" is still one of the most eloquent screams in American music) and a rollicking piano style, Little Richard fused gospel, rhythm & blues, and boogie woogie into a sound that was purely electric, and he startled audiences with his flashy clothes, outrageous persona, and willingness to present a sexually ambiguous image at a time when such things were all but unknown in popular culture. And though Little Richard had a relatively short tenure as a major hitmaker -- nearly all his hits appeared in 1956 and 1957 -- he maintained a reputation as an unrelenting stage performer, capable of blowing nearly any act off the stage, and his influence would be felt decades after he stopped charting singles on a regular basis. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan all cited Richard as a key inspiration, and he never entirely lost his audience despite walking away from secular music not once, but twice, convinced that rock & roll was an offense against his Christian faith. Richard's classic 1956-1957 sides for Specialty Records -- his greatest work -- are best heard on the 1991 compilation The Georgia Peach, and 1962's King of the Gospel Singers is among the very best of his underrated gospel recordings. While many of his '60s recordings were disappointing, 1964's Little Richard Is Back (And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!) and 1967's The Explosive Little Richard showed that his voice, his passion, and his charisma were still in fine condition. 1972's The Second Coming was the strongest of his comeback albums of that decade, and 1986's Lifetime Friend was a strong late-period LP that featured his last significant hit, "Great Gosh A'Mighty (It's a Matter of Time)."