Personnel: Little Richard (vocals, piano); Justin Adams, William "Frosty" Pyles, Edgar Blanchard, Ray Montrell, Nathaniel Douglas (guitar); Clarence Ford (tenor & baritone saxophones); Lee Allen, Joe Tillman, Wilbert Smith, Grady Gaines, Clifford Burks (tenor saxophone); Alvin "Red" Tyler, Jewell Grant, Samuel Parker (baritone saxophone); Renald Richard (trumpet); Huey Smith, Edward Frank (piano); Frank Fields, Lloyd Lambert, Olsie Richard Robinson (bass); Earl Palmer, Oscar Moore, Charles Connor (drums); The Robins (background vocals).
Producers: Art Rupe, Bumps Blackwell.
Re-issue producer: Billy Vera.
Recorded between 1955 & 1959. Includes liner notes by Billy Vera.
Richard Penniman - aka Little Richard, aka the Beauty, aka the Georgia Peach (hence the title) began recording in 1951 (see Bear Family's excellent THE FORMATIVE YEARS 1951-53) but he didn't really hit his stride until his tenure at Specialty Records. While there, beginning in 1955 with "Tutti Frutti," he turned out a long string of hits - piano driven, falsetto laden, three chord rockers pounded out at dangerously fast tempos - that influenced countless artists. The best of them -- "Long Tall Sally," "Lucille," "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Rip It Up," "Ready Teddy," "Keep a Knockin'" and more - are collected on this definitive one disc best-of, along with less familiar ("Ooh! My Soul") but no less cataclysmic (Ooh! My Soul") assaults on bourgeois propriety. Make no mistake -- this is rock-and-roll at absolute Ground Zero.
