Paul McCartney said he learned “everything he knows” from Little Richard in a tribute to the late rock legend posted on social media early Sunday morning. Richard, who shared stages with the Beatles early in their career and whose songs the group covered extensively, died of cancer Saturday at the age of 87.
“From ‘Tutti Frutti’ to ‘Long Tall Sally’ to ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’ to ‘Lucille’, Little Richard came screaming into my life when I was a teenager,” McCartney wrote. “I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style; and he knew it. He would say, ‘I taught Paul everything he knows.’ I had to admit he was right.”
The young Beatles performed with Richard at a show during one of their long residencies at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, which is where the group truly learned their craft.
“In the early days of the Beatles we played with Richard in Hamburg and got to know him,” McCartney wrote. “He would let us hang out in his dressing room and we were witness to his pre-show rituals, with his head under a towel over a bowl of steaming hot water, he would suddenly lift his head up to the mirror and say, ‘I can’t help it cos I’m so beautiful.’ And he was.”
The Beatles covered Richard classics like “Long Tall Sally,” “Lucille” and “Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!” — nearly always sung by McCartney. And he paid tribute to the singer in 1965 with the obvious homage “I’m Down,” which one could argue is the best Little Richard song that Little Richard never wrote.
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