TIL Little Richard was alive yesterday
Little Richard has died
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Re: Little Richard has died
#22The BBC just posted an interview with him from 1972 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/2691775331059950/
Re: Little Richard has died
#23I’m struggling to figure out how this is news that a hacker would find interesting. I certainly don’t.
Celebrity death news is banal. If there has never been a front page article about someone’s lived actions, we should not have one upon their death.
Re: Little Richard has died
#24I’m struggling to figure out how this is news that a hacker would find interesting. I certainly don’t. Celebrity death news is banal. If there has never been a front page article about someone’s lived actions, we should not have one upon their death.
>I’m struggling to figure out how this is news that a hacker would find interesting. I certainly don’t.
I'm struggling to find how this type of comment is considered interesting. HN is a social voting site for startup guys and hacker types. If enough users upvote a story within some time frame (and nothing more involved happens with the moderation), it goes to the front page. Simple as that, and has been discussed at least a hundred times.
So whether someone can "figure" why hackers would find this news interesting or not, hackers did find it interesting and upvoted it.
And why not? Hackers are not one-dimensional computer geeks. They have curiosity, they care for music, they care for pop culture (not to mention movies, comics, etc), they care for games, they care for science, they care for a thousand things...
It's also not about the fact that some "celebrity died".
Little Richard for starters is hardly a current celebrity. Obvious as his figure is to oldsters, most 20- 30-somethings today would't even know about him, except in encyclopedical terms ("some old rock n' roll guy from the fifties?") - if that.
He is celebrated by those who know about him not because of some contemporary popularity, but for what he did 65-70 years ago. Which included significant contributions to pop culture, rock music, gay representation, and other things besides. Things hackers can, and apparently do, find interesting.
Re: Little Richard has died
#25Little Richard’s induction of Otis Redding into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is one of the best inductions ever. It’s a mess, in a good way. It’s unorganized. Richard talks more about himself, but it works and it’s pure Rock and Roll. RIP. He was a pioneer. Seriously, watch the first minute. It’s beautiful. https://youtu.be/YUvHBirr1PI
"Ya'all gonna make me scream like a white lady..." LOL RIP sir.
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Re: Little Richard has died
#26Fans of Little Richard should look up Esquerita, who was a bit of a proto-Little-Richard :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquerita
He couldn't be "proto-" Little Richard since his "first solo studio recordings came (...) around 1958".
Little Richard was already doing pop in 1952, and had Tutti Frutti become a hit in 1955.
Re: Little Richard has died
#27Little Richard’s induction of Otis Redding into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is one of the best inductions ever. It’s a mess, in a good way. It’s unorganized. Richard talks more about himself, but it works and it’s pure Rock and Roll. RIP. He was a pioneer. Seriously, watch the first minute. It’s beautiful. https://youtu.be/YUvHBirr1PI
Another wonderful tiny slice of LR is when he's interviewed about Jimi Hendrix (search for "Little Richard on Jim Hendrix" on youtube - it's a very short video). I must have seen it 20 or 30 times as I was a Hendrix fan and it was on some VHS copy of a documentary on Hendrix I had at the time. In theory it's an incoherent mix of religiosity, homosexuality, flamboyance and almost narcissistic self-regard but for some…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHlRa-RPjWE
"That time that he used to make my big toe shoot up into my boot!"
Wow.
His freaky look gave Jimmy Hendrix confidence.
Re: Little Richard has died
#28The cultural garden is getting dryer and dryer. More room for new flowers I guess.
Re: Little Richard has died
#29Little Richard was a true legend — there will never be another like him. I always can’t help thinking of this hilariously bonkers piece by John Waters about interviewing him: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/nov/28/john-waters-me... “I was in this hotel and I had a Chrysler my mother had mortgaged her home to get me. I went into the studio anyway, and they had me singing like Ray Charles, BB King. They wanted m…
Bonkers indeed. An interesting point of comparison is this "interview" with Prince, written over the course of months by the writer tapped to write his memoirs [1]. It seems that Prince and Little Richard both had an extravagant overflowing creative instinct that just...dazzled people. As someone whose personality tacks way more toward clear and consistent structured logic, it's interesting to see. [1] https://www.ne…
Having watched a few videos of tutti frutti I can smell that Prince loved Little Richard to bits.. there's an subtle yet uncanny similarity in stance and rawness.
Re: Little Richard has died
#30I’m struggling to figure out how this is news that a hacker would find interesting. I certainly don’t. Celebrity death news is banal. If there has never been a front page article about someone’s lived actions, we should not have one upon their death.