Tutti Frutti

“Tutti Frutti”
Adam

I loved that Little Richard song as a child. My dad played the oldies station exclusively and “Tutti Frutti” was a standout for him. If I ever really thought about it, I would have thought I liked it simply because he did. Later I might have guessed that he really liked the song not because it was remarkable but because he loved doo wop. Even later I learned "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop" wasn't doo wop exactly. It was self censorship, allowing Little Richard to record a dirty song.

You can go a long time without understanding that there may be more to a classic than it just being old.

When I was ten, I entertained cousins I rarely saw by singing every word of the song when it played on the radio. This became legend. I see them even less frequently now. A decade can pass but everytime one of them will bring up me singing “Tutti Frutti.”

It feels like the only memory I share with these cousins but somehow it’s enough. So I was delighted to learn Little Richard was also known to forge bonds in extraordinary circumstances. From the New York Times obit:

... “they still had the audiences segregated” at concerts in the South in those days, but that when Little Richard performed, “most times, before the end of the night, they would all be mixed together.”

Bob Dylan wrote: “In his presence he was always the same Little Richard that I first heard and was awed by growing up and I always was the same little boy. Of course he’ll live forever. But it’s like a part of your life is gone.”

My dad and I and Bob Dylan and everyone loved that song because it was unlike anything before it. “Tutti Frutti” was so captivating that it was the blueprint for everything to come after it. You don’t know that the first time you hear it but you feel it. You feel like you’re at the beginning of something, like a child.