6.13.14 Tour Teasers

My opening post was not broadly about early rock and roll or the list of artists would be different. It was about Rockabilly -- an early foundational rock genre. If it was broadly about early rock n' rock Little Richard and the other R&B-Gospel based artists would have been prominent on the list.

Rockabilly (and mostly importantly Elvis) was responsible for fusing white music and black music in segregated America, for breaking the race radio line, for popularizing rock music with a broad audience worldwide. These were mostly white American performer who were copied by the British rock artists. The most directly linked "modern" rock form of music is punk rock but the influence is really strong in alt rock music too.

At the same time, there was the original blues based rock music - Little Richard, Fats Domino, Willie Dixon (he wrote "You Need Love" which is a large part of Led Zeppelin's WWL, and a lot of "Bring It On Home" which LZ also borrowed.) and many, many others. A lot of the 1960's British rock music was actually music written by African Americans, filtered through the UK and brought back to the US. The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin being the most famous. To their credit, the Stones and the Beatles usually credit the original artists or covered existing songs. Other British band, just "borrowed". There have been many out of court settlements over this practice and many more in the works. Little Richard was one of the primary influences on Mick Jagger to Michael Jackson to Bruno Mars. Blue based rock is everywhere.

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Back to Queen. Freddie covered Little Richard when he was a teenage, pre-Queen.

Queen covered "Tutti Fruitti" but in a very restrained way -- at least compared to the Little Richard version. Similar to the Bruno Mars cover. They might have performed it a few times in 1971-1973, but certainly covered it for the Magic Tour in 1986. The setlists for early Queen are unknown.

Queen 1 Tour 1973
It was not part of Queen standard Rock n' Roll covers which comprised the second half of their concert setlist in the early years -- but another Little Richard song was.

08. Jailhouse Rock written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that first became a hit for Elvis Presley. Rock n' Roll
09. Shake Rattle And Roll Big Joe Turner, and most successfully by Bill Haley & His Comets. Rockabilly
10. Stupid Cupid written by Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka which became a hit for Connie Francis Rock n' Roll
11. Be Bop A Lula Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps Rockabilly
12. Jailhouse Rock (reprise)
13. Big Spender written by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields for the musical Sweet Charity, most famously by Shirley Bassey. Pop
14. Bama Lama Bama Loo Little Richard cover, 1964 release that was a minor hit in the UK, not in the US. Rock n' Roll

Queen dropped "Bama Lama Bama Loo" for the 1974 Queen II tour.

Queen Magic Tour 1986

Queen - Tutti Fruitti (Live In Budapest, July 27, 1986) [Hungarian Rhapsody] (Audio Only)

youtu.be/2d2sK6k6lsg

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Little Richard described himself as omnisexual or bisexual his most recent interviews. This was really not very well known to the general audience in the 1950's and 1960's when he was musically most influential. Although his style clearly influenced many artists. But it was not a unique style by any means. That is a topic for another day.

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JMHO -- Queen was more influenced by the music that came out of the Rockabilly, mainstream Rock n' Rock (Elvis) and by artist who were included by Blues artists -- Led Zeppelin for example. One big exception is Jimi Hendrix who directly influenced Queen and Brian May specifically.

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The most wonderful thing about CLTCL is that it is a rockabilly song but it is original. That is a feat!