Little Richard, Soul Man

Wild and crazy guy Little Richard Penniman quit showbusiness at the height of his success in 1957 to go work for Jesus instead and enrolled in Bible college. He made a few Gospel records but obviously the Church of the Lord doesn't pay as well as the Church of Rock n' Roll and by 1962 he was back, touring England with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The music world had moved on while he'd been away though and he jumped from label to label in search of new success. In between stints at Vee-Jay (where his band included a young banjo plucker by the name of Jimi Hendrix) and Okeh he signed with Modern in 1965 and cut some tracks at Sun Studios in Memphis with the crack Stax session musicians. A lot of the stuff he recorded was re-workings of his earlier material and "Directly From My Heart" is a song he originally did back in the 50s which is given a Southern Soul makeover that's just sublime. It starts off real slinky and smoky and builds up to a wailing and testifying finale where you can hear why he was such a big influence on Otis Redding. Those stabbing Memphis Horns sound killer as usual too. Apparently this song was covered by Frank Zappa but the least said about that the better. This came out as a single in 1966 and was also on the album "The Wild and Frantic Little Richard" (what a great title) but neither did that well and he moved on to Okeh Records to try again.

Back in the 80s Ace released a 10" vinyl album called The Modern Sides, but despite the millions of Little Richard albums out there the only currently available album this version seems to appear on is the deep soul compilation Slow 'n' Moody, Black 'n' Bluesy. The rest of his work from this era is a little patchy but Get Down With It: The Okeh Sessions has some good stuff on it.

[Download]
Directly From My Heart - Little Richard