Yowling and screaming from generation to generation

Whenever I shuffle into my old fogey mode and start grousing about current pop music being nothing but a bunch of yowling and screaming, I have to remind myself about Little Richard. He was yowling and screaming before today’s yowlers and screamers were born.

The death of Little Richard last week at the age of 87 may not have had the same broad impact as the unexpected deaths of Elvis or Prince, John Lennon or Michael Jackson. But he influenced all of them.

And he introduced white American teenagers to a flavor of music we never knew existed. His style of rock and roll in the ‘50s was as revolutionary as rap would be in the ’70s.

We didn’t know back then that Little Richard’s hard-driving rhythms and flamboyant, frenetic performances would help change pop music forever. There wasn’t much coverage in mainstream media about rock and roll back then, because it wasn’t taken all that seriously. At least not until the sight of Elvis’s swiveling hips threatened the very soul of America.

We didn’t know that Little Richard —who sang about his desires for long tall Sally, short fat Fanny, Miss Molly, Jenny Jenny Jenny and Lucille —was gay. That he was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist. We didn’t even know his last name was Penniman.

All we knew is that Little Richard was cool.

It certainly wasn’t because he had a great voice. In describing his singing range, a New York Times article this week used words including “moan,” “yelp,” “growl” and “whoop.” I’m pretty sure The Times never printed any of those in connection with Luciano Pavarotti.

And it had nothing to do with his lyrics, even the ones that were intelligible. “Tutti Frutti,” his improbably titled breakout hit in 1955, began with “Whop bop b-luma b-lop bam bom, tutti frutti, oh Rudy.” We had no idea that was supposed to mean. Music scholars still can’t agree on some of those lyrics; check online and you’ll see translations including, “oh, rutti,” “oh, rooty” and “aw, rutti.” (The original phrase, according to Variety, was “good booty,” but that had to be sanitized before the record was released.)

For us, it was enough that Little Richard’s music was as unlike the music of our parents as it could be. As an added bonus, it was the best weapon we had to drive them crazy. Even better than Elvis.

“You call that music?” my stepfather would bellow after hearing “Slippin’ and Slidin’” blast from my record player for 30 or 40 consecutive spins. “It’s just a bunch of yowling and screaming.”

Yeah, maybe it was. But it was our yowling and screaming.