Little Richard five-LP box set highlights one of rock’s original wild men

The story of Little Richard’s rise to stardom in the 1950s is a textbook example of the vital David-and-Goliath role that independent record labels played in the birth of rock ’n’ roll in a world dominated by bigger players.

That’s one of the highlights of the just-released “The Mono Box: Complete Specialty/Vee-Jay Albums” set (Specialty Records/Concord Bicycle Music), culling Little Richard’s original Specialty and Vee-Jay albums on vinyl in a five-LP collection.

As noted in the extensive essay by Bill Dahl, Little Richard (born Richard Penniman) had been signed in 1951 — years before his first hits made the pop charts — by RCA Victor, one of the most prominent labels in the first half of the 20th century.

More than that, he was signed by no less than RCA talent development exec Steve Sholes, who later would work with Elvis Presley after the King of Rock ’n’ Roll made his move from Sam Phillips’ tiny Sun Records label in Memphis, Tenn., to the big leagues of New York-based RCA.

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Perhaps the world wasn’t ready yet for a performer as wildly erotic as Little Richard, although 1951 was also the year Sun had great success with Jackie Brenston & the Delta Cats’ salacious “Rocket 88,” the record many cite as the first full-fledged rock ’n’ roll record.

It may have been that the four records Little Richard made for RCA, none of which registered on the charts, just weren’t able to capture his full potential, or even that Richard himself wasn’t fully developed as an artist yet.

In any case, despite all the resources available to RCA, Richard’s career didn’t explode and he was dropped. His music then came to the attention of Los Angeles record exec Art Rupe, founder of Specialty Records, which in the late ’40s and early ’50s focused on the burgeoning R&B scene with records by Lloyd Price, Roy Milton, Percy Mayfield and brothers Jimmy and Joe Liggins and their respective bands.

Price had heard Little Richard and told Rupe to check him out. Rupe teamed the Macon, Ga.-born pianist, singer and songwriter with producer Robert “Bumps” Blackwell and commissioned them to go to work in producer Cosima Matassa’s New Orleans studio, out of which Price and Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones had recorded hits for Specialty.

Out of those sessions came “Tutti Frutti,” a song Richard had been using in his live shows. It was an unabashedly sexually provocative song whose lyrics were softened for release on record, but still quickly found a massive national audience.

The song also caught the attention of Richard’s fellow rock pioneers, and was recorded by Presley as well as Pat Boone, the crooner whose considerably milder version quickly outsold Richard’s original.

The joy in the new box set (which lists for $99.98), comes from absorbing the full dimensional sound of the original recordings in mono as they were intended.

We not only hear but also feel the percussive force of Richard’s utterly liberating vocals (a primal influence on one Paul McCartney), his thunderous piano-pounding, the rhythmic drive of the great New Orleans session drummer Earl Palmer (who a few years later would move to Los Angeles and continue his prolific pace in the studio) and the volcanic soloing by tenor saxophonist Lee Allen (who spent the last years of his long life playing in L.A.’s roots-rock band the Blasters).

The albums are packaged in individual sleeves with the original album art work and liner notes, and serve up not only the foundational hits “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Lucille,” “Rip It Up,” “Ready Teddy,” “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” “Jenny Jenny,” “Ooh! My Soul,” “The Girl Can’t Help It” and others that earned Little Richard a place among the original 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but also varied album tracks that showed his range as a singer and pianist.

Like other early rockers, he sometimes drew from the canon of songs that had made the Hit Parade in the decades before rock ’n’ roll exploded. His raucous take on “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” puts a delightfully raunchy spin on that pop oldie, and he also juices up the energy with his take on “Baby Face.”

Barely two years after Little Richard hit the spotlight, however, a series of events convinced him that his time on Earth, and perhaps time for Earth itself, was limited, so he famously renounced rock ’n’ roll and devoted himself to spiritual pursuits.

Rupe and Specialty released more of the material he’d recorded before his retreat from secular music (which was to be short-lived), and those make up most of the third Specialty album, “The Fabulous Little Richard.”

While on a tour of England in 1962 with Sam Cooke, Richard quickly learned that he couldn’t placate audiences with his more sanitized music, and relented by playing his hits, which paved the way for his return to secular music.

After a failed attempt to repeat his ’50s success almost a decade later with Rupe and Specialty, he signed in 1964 with Chicago-based indie label Vee-Jay (best known for releasing Beatles music in the U.S. before Capitol Records wised up and started issuing the Fab Four’s music here).

Vee-Jay issued a pair of albums — “Little Richard Is Back” and “Little Richard — His Greatest Hits,” the latter surveying his biggest successes in newly recorded versions.

At the time, those were considered by purists to be inferior to the originals, but it remains illuminating to hear him go at them again nearly a decade later.

Little Richard’s influence has been wide and profound, seen and heard in the performance styles of McCartney and John Lennon, Elton John, David Bowie, Prince, Bruce Springsteen and countless others.

Listening to his own recordings once again, it’s clear that he remains a rock ’n’ roll original who has been widely imitated, but never fully duplicated.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter.com

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