Here's Little Richard is the debut studio album by the American musician Little Richard, released on March 4, 1957. Promoted as "six of Little Richard's hits and six brand new
songs of hit calibre", the album compiles many of the A-sides and B-sides from Richard's hit singles including the Billboard top 40 entries "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up" and "Jenny, Jenny" and the top 10 Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers hits "Ready Teddy", "She's Got It" and "Miss Ann".
The album's twelve tracks were produced by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell and recorded in New Orleans and Los Angeles in a highly collaborative process. Several of the songs included have been characterised as innovative and important in the development of rock and roll. Here's Little Richard was Richard's highest charting album, peaking at 13 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. In the years since its release, the album has been included in several lists of the greatest albums of all time including those by Rolling Stone and Time. In 2025, Uncut ranked it as the greatest album of the 1950s.
Background
Little Richard first achieved success after signing to Art Rupe's label Specialty Records and releasing the single "Tutti Frutti". A self-composed number which Richard had been performing live for some time, "Tutti Frutti" was recorded at J & M Studio, New Orleans in September 1955 after producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell had Richard's ribald lyrics revised by songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie. The song's hollered refrain (often transcribed as "a-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!"), hard-driving sound and unconventional lyrics became a model for many future Little Richard songs. Richard accompanies himself on piano on the song, playing eight-note patterns that have been cited as an innovation in rhythm and blues. In 2012, musicologist Lee Hildebrand stated "swing and shuffle beats had been the primary pulse of rhythm & blues until Richard introduced the even eights that would come to drive most R&B and rock music".
In the wake of his single’s success, Richard travelled to Los Angeles and recorded demos at Specialty's offices, Radio Recorders and Ted Brinson's studio before returning to J & M. His style of working was marked by grinding rehearsals and close collaboration with Art Rupe, Bumps Blackwell, and recording engineer and studio owner Cosimo Matassa. The follow-up to "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", was initially titled "The Thing" and was cut three times on different dates before Rupe was satisfied. In addition to the hallmarks carried over from "Tutti Frutti" such as Richard's falsetto "woo"s and his hammering boogie-woogie-styled piano, "Long Tall Sally" features a rapid fire vocal delivery. The song topped the Rhythm and Blues chart and its B-side, "Slippin' and Slidin'", reached No. 2. Richard's next single "Rip It Up / Ready Teddy" was his third million-seller, while "She's Got It" was another Rhythm & Blues top ten. By the end of 1956, Richard's success had led to appearances in the rock and roll films Don't Knock the Rock and The Girl Can't Help It. His frantic performance style saw him described as a "whirling dervish of modern entertainment" by Melody Maker.
Contents
Here's Little Richard was Specialty's first 12-inch LP. Assembled by Art Rupe, the album compiles Richard's six hit songs from 1955–56 alongside six previously unreleased cuts with each recording featuring his distinctive "totally untameable, anarchic vocal style" pushed forward. Among the new songs on the album, "Can't Believe You Wanna Leave" has been described as a "chugging blues lament" that, along with "Oh Why", resembles the "sedentary style of Fats Domino". The tender "Baby" has been likened to the work of Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters. The single "Jenny, Jenny/Miss Ann" was released from the album in June 1957. "Jenny, Jenny", described by Record Collector as a "joyous celebration of womanhood",
Release
Here's Little Richard was issued by Specialty on March 4, 1957, both as a 12-inch LP (SP-100) and as a series of three EPs (SEP-400, 401 and 402 respectively). The album spent five weeks on the Billboard Top LPs chart and peaked at number thirteen. It was Richard's only album to make the US top twenty.
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Reviewing Here's Little Richard upon its release, Billboard praised the "striking" cover art and commented "Richard's frantic up-tempo wailings will definitely be greeted enthusiastically by the jive set". Cash Box described the album as a "refresher course of previous R&R smashes", noting "with hardly a spare breath, the young
entertainer belts out some of his biggest hits". A less favourable notice came from the Duncannon Record, whose anonymous reviewer commented "the full treatment did not altogether convince me that rock is my salvation in the realm of the arts. But I will admit I could follow the beat and there were times when I was able to suppress my spleen long enough to allow my foot to tap".
Among retrospective reviews, Mark Deming of AllMusic commented that "these 12 tunes may not represent the alpha and omega of Little Richard's best music, but every song is a classic and unlike many of his peers, time has refused to render this first album quaint -- Richard's grainy scream remains one of the great sounds in rock & roll history, and the thunder of his piano and the frantic wail of the band is still the glorious call of a Friday night with pay in the pocket and trouble in mind". Reviewing the album's 2012 reissue, Terry Staunton of Record Collector deemed the album's "raucous rockers" still startling and "rarely equalled for their flash and ferocity". maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list, but dropping to number 227 in the 2020 revision. It is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Time listed it in the Top 100 Albums of All Time in 2010. Similarly, Plasketes wrote that the record's songs impacted the vocals and performance styles of performers including Otis Redding, James Brown, Richard Berry, Etta James, Big Al Downing and Thurston Harris, while noting that the record's more animated songs would later attract interpreters such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, John Fogerty, Mitch Ryder and the Rolling Stones. Richard later recorded new versions of the album's songs for other labels. Contributor Bud Scoppa wrote how "the self described king – and queen – of rock'n'roll [drew up] the grand blueprint, settting into motion the transformation of popular music."