1. Little RichardHere’s Little Richard
My mom had a bunch of 7”s at home and there was always music on. She had a bunch of Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Tommy Steele, 50s rock stuff. I just got completely absorbed by Little Richard when I was about seven. This was the time when ABBA was bigger than anything else in Sweden especially. Everyone listened to ABBA or maybe Thin Lizzy. Those were the anthologies everyone listened to in my class when we were seven, eight, nine years old. But for me it was only Little Richard and I brought all my Little Richard records to the parties we had at school. Everyone hated it, but I was very persistent and played it every time.
There were a couple of 7”s my mum had and pretty soon I was craving more, so that’s where my addiction started I guess. Going to the record shop and only looking for Little Richard. Pretty soon my Little Richard shelf got bigger and bigger. I was just focusing on that shit. And after that expanding, I actually came to Jimi Hendrix pretty fast since he was playing with Little Richard, that’s how it works. And then all the other stuff we’re talking about. But Little Richard is to blame.
It really started with Little Richard and Little Richard is peaking for me right now. The piece I’m writing now for the Nu-Ensemblen is actually based on Little Richard material. It’s the first time that I’m using Little Richard, both lyrics and music. Of course, I’m using it in a slightly different way, but the foundation is Little Richard.
What’s so special about this particular album?
I mean, just the cover! [holds it up] He made some recordings before that which were great, but this is the first real thing, all the hits: ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘Rip It Up’, ‘Jenny Jenny’, ‘Miss Anne’. It all has those great rhythm sections and especially the saxophones. I was not aware of that when I was a kid, but all the sax solos and the horn arrangements, when I listen to it now, it’s really great. I found out a little bit more about the players and they’re really quite famous. Most of them are from New Orleans, they were session musicians, but this is top of the cream, so to speak! That really put me in a situation where I thought saxophones were pretty hot. Of course it’s his voice which first attracted me. It was so dirty and weird. No-one else was singing like that. Everyone else was singing like ABBA or rock based stuff. But he was singing like a broken radio. I was really attracted by the brokenness of his voice.
