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Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll
David Kirby (Continuum)

Not a biography of Richard Wayne Penniman (for that you would need The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography by Charles White), more a biography of the track that launched his career. Indeed Kirby only actually talks to Richard at any length once on the phone – whilst visiting one of Richard’s relatives - and rather than gleaning any useful information from the notoriously awkward singer/preacher (delete as applicable depending on how Richard feels when he wakes up in the morning), he only manages to have his wallet emptied into the waiting purse of the closely hovering relative. The lack of Richard’s input is however no impediment to the narrative as Kirby makes his argument – and a cogently argued, perfectly reasonable, argument it is too – for ‘Tutti Frutti’ being the wellspring of rock ‘n’ roll, and if on occasion things get slightly academic in tone that would almost certainly be due to Kirby’s day job as Professor of English at Florida State University. Of course the same argument could reasonably be made for, amongst others, Fats Domino’s ‘The Fat Man’, Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’ or Big Mama Thornton’s version of Leiber and Stollers ‘Hound Dog’ but that doesn’t make this any less of an entertaining read.
The Oracle

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John Lydon: Stories Of Johnny
(Chrome Dreams)

A collection of essays about John Lydon, much like the recent collection of interviews with Tom Waits, was always going to be entertaining, and such proves to be the case. So we have Greil Marcus being all bookish and wordy contemplating lofty themes and confusing the hell out of this reader. Kris Needs writing like an enthusiastic journeyman hack/
musician, and being all the more entertaining because of it (he also had plenty of interview time with the notoriously spiky interviewee who obviously finds him less tiresome than most journos he encounters). Legs McNeil brings a punky yank slant to the proceedings, which lends a whole new angle to some things and misses the point entirely on others (proving the Sex Pistols meant something totally different culturally to our American cousins) whilst yet another US interloper, Judy Nylon, gives us all the ‘I was there’ goss, and in consequence provides probably the most entertaining read here. Of the remainder Clinton Heylin thoroughly deconstructs the ramshackle and bad tempered Public Image story and there's also an extensive recent Pat Gilbert interview. Barb Jungr is a bit dull, Alan Clayson is workmanlike and Nigel Williamson takes the opportunity to write about himself, which is nice...
Ruby Palmer

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