Long Tall Sally

The first time you listen to Long Tall Sally, you can’t help but tap your feet. It’s not just the breakneck tempo, but that sharp piano riff and voice that seems to burst from the edges of the speaker. Little Richard doesn’t sing: he attacks. The words pile up as if the air isn’t enough, and Lee Allen’s saxophone cuts through each verse like lightning. The song never lets up, and that’s its trick: it forces you to keep up with the same frenetic pace it’s had since 1956, when Robert "Bumps" Blackwell and Enotris Johnson shaped a few lines scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper by a fan who needed to pay for her aunt’s treatment. The rest was pure speed: Little Richard tweaked the lyrics, flipped the beat, and ended up with a track unlike anything on the radio at the time.

They recorded it in a single day, February 7, 1956, at J&M Studio in New Orleans, where Fats Domino and others had already left their mark. Little Richard’s piano hammers out staccato eighth notes while Earl Palmer’s drums lay down a shuffle that, in theory, was standard for rhythm and blues—but he stretched it into a place where time feels wider. The result was a single that hit No. 1 on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts and climbed to No. 6 on the pop list, a rarity for a song of its kind. In 1999, that same recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and though it now sounds like an inevitable classic, at the time it was a challenge: Pat Boone had dominated the charts with softer covers of other Little Richard hits, so the team decided to create something even he couldn’t replicate without breaking. They succeeded. And ever since, Long Tall Sally has never stopped touring stages, inspiring versions and covers by bands like The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac.