A groundbreaking force of nature in the original rock ‘n’ roll explosion, Little Richard kept on doing it, often to surprising artistic success, long after his heyday as a hitmaker had waned. For a tidy example of his undying musical potency, one need look no further than “Try Some of Mine: The Brunswick Recordings,” an EP available April 12 for Record Store Day from ORG Music.
It’s not a bit unusual for music to get better with age, but in this regard Little Richard is nearly in a class by himself. With each passing year, as the planet gets more fucked up, the sides the man cut for the Specialty label don’t just continue to cut major mustard, they have grown into a regenerative salve for the soul in how they combine the celebratory and the defiant.
There is also the matter of creating a new musical style from extant models to consider (the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, ya dig?), and when this reality gets added into the equation, Little Richard sits in good company with the Ramones, and on a plateau where the prestige as punk rock royalty gets shared. Although Little Richard was wildly popular upon his public breakthrough at a level that proved elusive to the Ramones, he was also scorned by a considerable percentage of the public and perceived as dangerous by an even higher number, two reactions now built into the lore of the New York City punk pioneers.
But it’s important to emphasize how the Brunswick recordings collected here fall outside of Little Richard’s commercial and artistic peak period. He cut three singles for the label in 1968, none of them hitting the charts, and then moved on; his comparatively fertile stretch with Reprise was just around the corner as the 1970s dawned.
Due to its brevity and the general lack of fanfare that accompanies Little Richard’s Brunswick singles, the material has consistently gotten lost in the reissue and compilation shuffle. This makes ORG Music’s decision to spotlight these six songs as an EP a wise one, as the cuts find the man in solid form, adjusting to sustained developments in Soul-R&B (he has Don Covay as a writer on the title track and its flip side “She’s Together”) rather than desperately mimicking fleeting trends in hopes of regaining chart stature.
Just as crucially, Little Richard was resistant to the temptations of nostalgia, an impulse that would explode (and become lucrative) for ’50s rock ‘n’ rollers in the early ’70s but already had its hooks in as the ’60s wound down (e.g. Sha Na Na played Woodstock). Instead, there’s a vital bluesy edge and soulful sweep to the songs collected here (check “Soul Train” for evidence of the latter) that keeps Little Richard far outside the innocuousness of the throwback zone.
Although these Brunswick singles shouldn’t serve as an introduction to Little Richard’s greatness, there’s an energy that flows through the whole bunch that’s persistently pleasurable and doubly attractive as the man registers as truly engaged in the proceedings throughout. For an example of how to effectively keep on keepin’ on in the midst of ever mounting antagonisms, just snag a copy of “Try Some of Mine,” plop the pink platter into a turntable, drop needle and get a nice but appealingly quick fix.
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