I Was Blessed By Little Richard
By Porter Carroll Jr.
When Newban (not yet renamed Atlantic Starr) arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-seventies from, Greenburgh, New York, we started rehearsing in the legendary, S.I.R. Studios in Hollywood. This particular night, I heard about (and some of us saw) Sly Stone down the hall trying out new equipment. It still pains me to think I didn’t get to see him.
Shocked though, was that Eddie Kendricks from The Temptations popped into OUR session and just stood quietly along a side wall. Crazy! I was wide-eyed, wondering what could be next in this place?
On a break, Wayne Lewis, Clifford Archer and I ventured down the hallway and hesitantly poked our heads into a slamming Rock & Roll rehearsal. We tip-toed in, only to be greeted by this tall, really handsome, brown skinned, clog wearing, huge pompadour do havin’ man we all knew …Yep. It was him! Little Richard himself. I remember looking UP at him! This man was NOT small. My first thought was …” where did the Little come from?” Before we knew it, he came over, kindly said hello and then touched the top of our heads with a soft, closed fist and blessed us. He said in that famous voice, through the iconic smile, under the razor-sharp mustache, one at a time, “I’m going to Bless you” and wish you a great career and allowed us to stay and watch. We stayed for the length of our break and all but ran back to our session to tell everyone.
Afterwards, periodically, the three of us would look at each other (nervously laughing) as if to say …what just happened? It was surreal and a great lesson in, no matter how big a star gets, he or she can still be nice to aspiring artist who maybe in awe of you. You can inspire more by being welcoming, then being arrogant as we so often heard or read about. It was like he offered his open arms to the business. It was an enlightening class in how you can choose to conduct yourself under bright lights. I always wanted to see him again to say thank you, Mr. Richard Penniman, aka Little Richard. Lesson learned.
Since that time, I’d heard him refer to himself as, “The Architect” and I believe him wholeheartedly. You can’t even think of rock and roll performance, composition, piano playing and singing without acknowledging Little Richard. In the same way you could never approach the idea of a symphony without recognizing Beethoven. Ask anyone trying to understand the real roots of popular music.
NO ONE will ever be more important to Rock & Roll, which morphed into modern R&B, Soul, Rock, Funk, and eventually influenced Miles and other jazz greats to create Fusion and the list goes on.
I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to him for co-creating a ground breaking genre and withstanding the pounding any pioneer will enviably endure. More personally, his creativity and courage just happened to pave the way for a professional life in the arts for the likes of me and my contemporaries.
You can easily take for granted his impact, possibly due to the caricatures created, be it self-imposed or more mean spirited. But just look back at some of the bold, sweating, high speed, half dressed, singing at the top of his range (in tune mind you) performances at the height of unreasonable social unrest in this country and you can see how fearless, talented and a visionary this man was. He KICKED down doors. He influenced thousands of rock artist while letting this and other children of color know, this is no game. You have to “bring it in on all levels” and be ready to deal with the consequences no matter what you choose to do with your lives. However, you can still be strong enough to be kind.
It still amazes me that we encountered this particular international groundbreaker, this full out ass kicker in his very private space within days of our arrival. Here’s a true icon, yet somehow, he was a complete gentleman to Wayne, Clifford and me. It’s like it set a tone for our ascent. Within just 18 short months we reached our target and signed a major recording contract with Herb Albert and Jerry Moss’s, A&M Records, the largest independent recording company in the world at that time. We were just kids. In thinking about it, maybe we were blessed that evening. It was at least a positive
beginning.
He had a line in a movie where he was a bit annoyed while waiting in the wings to go on stage and said …” I’m going to WALK them!” Meaning, he was going to put on a take no prisoners performance in spite of his annoyance. He did just that in this film. I say, now, he can walk right into heaven without any anger or fear or sorrow. He answered all of the questions. He fought the great fight at the top of the music, social and spiritual latter.
Like all of us, he fell short of perfection but he absolutely got it right. I can’t thank him enough.
May you rest peacefully, Sir. You so deserve it. Porter Carroll, Jr. 🙏🏾
Greenburgh resident Porter Carroll Jr. is the original drummer and one of four singers with Atlantic Starr. Born in White Plains, Carroll was raised in Greenburgh and, like the rest of Atlantic Starr, graduated from Woodlands High School.
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