Paul McCartney Talks About Little Richard’s Influence

The former Beatle went to Twitter to write a tribute for his personal rock n’ roll hero, Little Richard.

Paul McCartney wrote in a tweet: “From ‘Tutti Frutti’ to ‘Long Tall Sally’ to ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly’ to ‘Lucille’, Little Richard came screaming into my life when I was a teenager. I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style; and he knew it. He would say, ‘I taught Paul everything he knows’. I had to admit he was right.”

Before becoming the global phenomenon that were, the Beatles played residencies at the Star-Club in Hamburg, where they split the bill with Little Richard, sometime in ’62. “In the early days of the Beatles we played with Richard in Hamburg and got to know him. He would let us hang out in his dressing room and we were witness to his pre-show rituals, with his head under a towel over a bowl of steaming hot water, he would suddenly lift his head up to the mirror and say, ‘I can’t help it cos I’m so beautiful.’ And he was,” McCartney shared.

Back in 2017, McCartney also revealed that he adopted some of Little Richard’s rituals, saying, “I do like a steaming before I go on, which I was told was probably the best thing to clear your larynx. I was taught that by watching Little Richard do it when we were kids in Hamburg. He used to do it before he went on.”

“A great man with a lovely sense of humor and someone who will be missed by the rock and roll community and many more. I thank him for all he taught me and the kindness he showed by letting me be his friend. Goodbye Richard and a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop,” McCartney added in a tweet.

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