LITTLE RICHARD: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History


Published by Hourly History in January of 2023.

Hourly History publishes histories and biographies that you can read in about an hour. That can be a tough job for big topics in history like "The Industrial Revolution" or "The Roman Empire" but it is just about right for a short biography. 

Little Richard (1932-2020) was an early rock and roll singer with a series of top 40 hits from 1956-1958, including songs like "Tutti Frutti", "Lucille," and "Long Tall Sally." His style was raucous and loud compared to most singers, except maybe for Jerry Lee Lewis. He also was one of the first black artists to cross over to white audiences.  

Unlike most singers from that era, Little Richard never really disappeared from the public eye. He had a series of comebacks and kept on showing up with comeback tours, songs on movie soundtracks, live greatest hits albums and TV and movie appearances. 

Little Richard was known as a flamboyant showman. He wore a lot of makeup when that was an unknown thing and pulled off a combination being macho and feminine at the same time. It's pretty easy to think of him as the prototype for performers like Prince.

This short biography was pretty solid. I thought it did a particularly good job of catching Little Richard's struggles with drugs. It was interesting and more than a little sad to read about how poorly he dealt with a conflict between his seriously-held conservative Christian religious beliefs, his sexual orientation and other sexual interests. He spent a lot of his with deeply conflicted feelings.

I rate this short e-book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: LITTLE RICHARD: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History.

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