Customer Reviews

Second Coming

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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After the Muscle Shoals swamp-rock of 1970's The Rill Thing and the misfire mélange of `50s rock and `70s R&B on 1971's King of Rock `n' Roll, Richard third's and final album for Reprise splits the difference. The rock `n' roll sides, recorded with many of the New Orleans players who backed Richard's 1950s sessions, are shorn of the dated neo-disco touches H.B. Barnum added to the preceding album, and though the grooves never cut as deep as the earlier Muscle Shoals session, there's a good helping of funk here. Lee Allen provides fat sax tone, and Earl Palmer anchors the second line beats with greatest of ease.

Producer Bumps Blackwell's work is more huskhy here than on his and Richard's seminal mid-50s sides, mixing the funky jazz sounds of New Orleans with a bit of Stax soul. As on the Muscle Shoals sessions, Richard sounds comfortable, if not always as energized. "When the Saints Go Marching In" is ignited by Richard's revival-pitch vocal and superb playing by both Palmer and Allen, and the funk continues on the mostly instrumental "Nuki Suki," with Richard's clavinet and the saxophone's yelps giving way to short, lascivious vocal breaks.

A wah-wah-and-bass groove provides the foundation of "Prophet of Peace," and the closing "Sanctified, Satisfied Toe-Tapper" is a seven-minute instrumental. The album's most unusual track is a co-write with Sneaky Pete Kleinow, "It Ain't What You Do, It's the Way You Do It," featuring Kleinow's steel guitar. Richard and Blackwell's original rock `n' roll grooves show themselves on "Rockin' Rockin' Boogie" and "Thomasine." While this isn't as inventive or forward thinking as The Rill Thing, it's a great deal more solid than King of Rock `n' Roll, and deserved larger commercial success at the time. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

There's alot of great music on Little Richard's third Reprise album - too bad he's not very involved with it - only 5 *singing* cuts - others are instrumentals or monologues.
If you love to hear Richard really open up his voice box to show off his olympian octave leaps and powerful vibrato, this is the last Richard CD you need.
Best track, a sensational 10 minute instrumental where the '50s meets the '70s, in the best tradition.
(Excellent liner notes; improved sound).

Firstly, I don't share many people's opinion about which period in Richard's musical carreer is his best. I'm convinced that the seventies were the years when he fully developped all his talent and inspiration to write polished and mature rock & roll songs singing them extraordinarily well. The King of rock and roll in one of those albums he recorded then. By the way, I suggest another original Penniman's record that is an absolute must to me: The Rill Thing.

[It appears that this review migrated from another Amazon review]:

Another collection of Little Richard's Vee Jay records, with exactly one semi-rarity, if you will: the original single B-side of his 1965 hit, "I Don't Know What You've Got (But It's Got Me)" - the song is usually presented as an extended "Part One".
The listed alternate take of "Dance What You Wanna" is pressed as the familiar B-side of 1965 Vee Jay single.
The set does come with a nice booklet with some interesting session details.
If you really are interested in Richard's '72 album of the same name ("Second Coming"), check it out as part of a Rhino Handmade boxed-set on LR's Reprise years. (Far from his best on that label).
Interestingly enough, there *are* two Reprise tracks on this collection, an alternate take/edit of "Why Don't You Love Me?" and "Funky Dish Rag" which very likely is a remix of a Richard instrumental called "Mississippi". It's possible that all the instrumentals here are original Reprise material.