FILE - In this July 22, 2001 file photo, Little Richard performs at the 93rd birthday and 88th year in show business gala celebration for Milton Berle, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Little Richard, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ‘n’ roll” whose piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour irrevocably altered popular music while introducing black R&B to white America, has died Saturday, May 9, 2020. (AP Photo/John Hayes, File)

We’re in a transitional pocket of time now as we descend deeper into the gray and gusty days of November. We can now feel the days of this waning year drawing down. Now, in the throes of the holiday stretch, the bleak colorless landscape hangs over us like a pewter pall. Each year we say a final farewell to celebrities who have left us during the year. This past May we lost Little Richard, the self-proclaimed architect of rock & roll. Months after his passing at 87, a host of long-ago thoughts and images of him have been drifting through my mind like the dry brittle leaves of November that skip across the driveway in the breeze.

Sir Paul McCartney was heavily influenced by the rock icon, and quite recently, I heard the Beatles cover version of “Long Tall Sally,” a Little Richard classic, while driving down the highway. Of course I turned up the volume to an ear-shattering level, and in the privacy of my car, sang along as I wondered how the years of my youth had disappeared so quickly. In my mind, no artist in music has ever done a better cover of the song than McCartney in his screaming rock & roll voice. Before the Beatles conquered the music world, they opened for Little Richard on one of his UK tours in the early 60’s, and McCartney formed a lifelong admiration and fascination for the charismatic performer that never ended.

Born Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Georgia in 1932, more than any other musical artist, with the possible exception of Elvis, Little Richard blew the roof off the 1950’s. While Elvis was unquestionably the biggest American rock star of all time, it was the explosive and flamboyant Little Richard who laid the foundation upon which rock & roll was built.

With his wild gender-bending unique persona that saw his face lined with thick mascara, a high-piled pompadour hairdo, heavy facial makeup, and glittering costumes that made Liberace seem tame by comparison. At the dawn of rock & roll, he was like a musical Molotov cocktail that was thrown into the middle of the mid-fifties igniting the American music scene. In the span of three years, from 1955 to 1958, he was a hit-making dynamo, cranking out blockbuster songs that included, “Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Lucille,” “Rip It Up,” “Keep a Knockin” and “Slippin and Slidin.” Looking back to the distant halcyon days of rock in its infancy, he had an uncanny ability to fuse together the gospel music on which he was raised, seamlessly, with a new brand of head-pounding blues-rock that, in a gritty singing voice that sounded like sawdust in his vocal chords, would become his musical signature across many different generations of fans.

Pounding his piano with reckless abandon, belting out lyrics with falsetto whoops and throat-rupturing screams, and often throwing out articles of his clothing to the audience, this son of a Georgia church deacon found fame and fortune that was beyond his wildest dreams. Often jokingly referring to himself as, “the beauty,” he proclaimed himself to be “the bronze Liberace,” and “The Georgia Peach.” He became a music idol to the world’s biggest rock icons who followed in his wake ,including Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and John Fogerty. Like a piano playing Muhammad Ali, Richard was also an unabashed self-promoter extraordinaire. Once, at the end of a TV appearance, he looked into the camera, and in a spirit of kidding and friendship said to Prince, “Prince, I was wearing purple long before you was wearing it!”

When all is said and done, I believe that aside from his enormous musical talent, it was always his outrageous, over the top, and larger than life personality that drew so many people to him. He was a fun performer who took America on a musical thrill ride. He made us happy with jaw-dropping live versions of his hits every time the lights went down. People couldn’t keep still listening to him. He was one of a kind, and we never lost our appetite for him.

Despite his struggle with an all-consuming cocaine addiction throughout the 70’s and 80’s that took an enormous toll on his health, he was always in demand, and remained wildly popular with fans who weren’t even born when “Good Golly Miss Molly” was topping the charts.

As he faded away in the 90’s his mystique remained intact until his final days in the 21st century. He was at the front of the line when the first intake of artists were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when it opened in 1986, along with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley.

As I say, hearing that old Beatles cover of “Long Tall Sally” recently was like being swept up in November’s gusty winds of nostalgia. A faded collage of faraway images of one of rock’s most enduring performers has been skipping down the back alleys of my memory. I’m surrounded by those swirling long ago images as I write this. For those stars who made an impact on us across the years, that last goodbye is always sad, but looking over my shoulder at the timeless songbook that Little Richard has left to us makes me smile.

Paul Collins is a freelance writer from Massachsetts.

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