Little Richard Is Back (And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!)

After leaving Specialty Records in 1957 to record gospel music, Richard recorded twenty tracks for the Goldner Records label in the summer of 1959, in New York City, on his break from Bible College, in Huntsville, Alabama . Although tempted back to record rock and roll with his old band The Upsetters for Little Star Records in 1962, he soon went back to gospel, recording for Atlantic Records in 1963. (There are 36 tracks reported to have been cut for Mercury Records and Atlantic). A successful British tour finally made Richard return to his rock and roll roots, and tracks for singles were cut in 1964 with Specialty, though not enough for an album.

Although the records kept in the Vee-Jay Records vaults aren't terribly accurate (many even disputing whether or not Jimi Hendrix played guitar on some tracks) it's believed that Richard stepped into the recording studios on June 30th, 1964 and had a further six sessions until May/June/July 1965, recording forty-six tracks. Over half of these tracks were split between this and the follow-up album, Little Richard's Greatest Hits, yet the company was not able to do anymore with the unreleased recordings as financial problems caused them to file for bankruptcy in January 1966.

As a result of Vee-Jay Records's collapse, the archive tracks were gradually released over a period of time, often adding just one unreleased track from the vaults. These four additional albums were released by different labels, firstly by Joy (UK) Records and then Dynasty Records, the last one in 1974, nearly ten years after Richard had stopped recording for the label. Two of these albums featured never-on-l.p. and previously unreleased tracks. A Vee Jay executive said that a session of instrumentals was also cut.

1. "A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" (Dave Williams, Sunny David)
2. "Going Home Tomorrow" (Alvin E. Young, Fats Domino)
3. "Money Honey" (Jesse Stone)
4. "Only You" (Buck Ram)
5. "Hound Dog" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller)
6. "Goodnight Irene" (Huddie Ledbetter, John Lomax)
7. "Lawdy Miss Claudie" (Lloyd Price)
8. "Groovy Little Suzy" (Harry Nilsson, John Marascalco)
9. "Short Fat Fanny" (Larry Williams)
10. "Cherry Red" (Bill Lazerus, Jack Moon)
11. "Memories Are Made of This" (Frank Miller, Richard Dehr, Terry Gilkyson)
12. "Blueberry Hill" (Al Lewis, Larry Stock, Vincent Rose)

• Jimi Hendrix - guitar on six numbers (disputed)
• Bumps Blackwell - percussion
• Don Harris - electric violin
• Dewey Terry - guitar
• Black Arthur - unknown
• Little Richard - producer
• Jerry Long - arranger
• George S. Whiteman - cover photography

Album