By Ken Ehrlich I was — God, do I have to admit this? — about 13 when I first heard Little Richard. There were two people like that in 1956 or ’57: him and Jerry Lee Lewis.
I watched Elvis Presley on “Ed Sullivan,” but I have a more vivid memory of the first time I saw Jerry Lee or Richard, because they were wild.
Elvis moved his hips, but with [Richard and Lewis], the hair flew and the fingers flew and the body language was startling. It was everything our parents hated, so that made it that much more dangerous, and part of it was probably because he was African American.
I really wanted to play piano like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. I knew I couldn’t, but I spent a lot of time trying. It wasn’t hard to play what they played, but
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