Good Golly Miss Molly!

We lost royalty today.

Little Richard -- born Richard Penniman -- died at the age of 87.

There is no true originator of rock and roll, of course. Just like baseball, rock was an amalgam of things that formed into a movement in the mid 1950s. Sure, there was jazz and bluegrass and blues and gospel and ragtime.

It's generally accepted that the forefathers of rock and roll include Big Joe Turner, Fats Domino, a pre-Tina Ike Turner along with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and His Comets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, and even Johnny Cash.

And Little Richard -- WOOOOOOO!

Shut up.

Little Richard's passing makes me sad because, of those who put rock and roll on the map, only Jerry Lee is left.

But thinking about Little Richard makes me smile because his outsized personality matched the brash rock and roll that he played.

“I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll!” he said in 1988. “I am the originator!”

He influenced everyone -- The Beatles and James Brown and Otis Redding and, basically, everyone.

Among his latter work was on The Imus Ranch Record -- yes, as in Don Imus -- singing "I Ain't Never." The album raised money for The Imus Ranch (and is outstanding).

If there's a rock and roll heaven, man, look out tonight.

A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom.

Shut up.



Day 8: A song about drugs or alcohol

So many. Seriously. Soooo many songs.

Whiskey in the Jar. I Want a New Drug (duh). Cocaine. Got To Get You into My Life. Cocaine Blues (Have I mentioned how Johnny Cash is The Man?).

I was going to pick any one of those, and then...well...

Long before they changed their focus (and name) and allowed this to happen there was a band called Jefferson Airplane and as soon as I thought of this title, I began hearing that opening bass line played by Jack Casady. It screams of psychedelic imagery and was written by Grace Slick, who was apparently coming off an acid trip at the time of composition.

Regardless, it's classic.

"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small..."