Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll

vernacular American pop musics: gospel, blues, country) to explain Richard's artistic roots. Kirby insists that that first big hit, "Tutti Frutti," a cleaned-up "paean to heinie-poking" howled by "a gay black cripple from a town nobody ever heard of," is the first 100-proof rock 'n' roll song and devotes the central chapter here to its creation and impact. Kirby packs his prose as fully as he does his verse and likewise runs it on high octane, pedal to the metal. He beats all the professional rock scribes hollow with this light-footed but profound little book." (Booklist, STARRED Review) "David Kirby, a poet and professor in Tallahassee, Florida, is on an uphill, uproarious mission to rewrite the legacy of Macon's outsize Little Richard. "'Tutti Frutti' occupies a finite space smack in the middle of our huge-ass Crab Nebula of a culture," Kirby writes. "It's like the skinniest part of an hourglass; everything that came before flows into this narrow pass, and the world we live in today flows out the other side." Even if you don't agree with the sentiment, you have to admire Kirby's enthusiasm. This is a very personal biography, full of good-humored energy and insightful wit." (Theresa Weaver, Atlanta Magazine) "Kirby isn't interested in stolidly documenting all of Little Richard's life; he's interested in him as a transformative figure who embodies a whole array of antitheses in one pompadoured, satin-and-glitter-clad person, like some trickster god of 20th century pop culture....A rich subject for a scholar and poet, and Kirby has a ball with it." (St. Petersberg Times) "...it's hard to imagine [Little Richard] will ever find himself championed by a more enthusiastic and persuasive advocate." (Washington Post Sunday, December 2009) "...a huge cultural shift that Richard, unlike Elvis, say, has never been given full credit for. With one foot firmly planted in academia, and concentrating on that one song, Kirby makes a valiant attempt to right that perceived wrong." (Q Magazine, February 2010) "An entertaining read." (Total Music, February 2010. Read the full review at http://www.totalmusicmagazine.com/bookreviews.htm) "[Kirby] writes with the fast-talking charm of the music he loves...a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense." (Times Literary Supplement, March 2010) 'The contentiousness of [this book] is refreshing, and a welcome alternative to merely rehashing facts and figures.' (Record Collector Terry Staunton)"