The one artist who taught Paul McCartney everything: “I love that so much”

Some of the greatest Beatles songs feel like they have existed since the beginning of time. As much as John Lennon and Paul McCartney‘s story has been in the public eye time and time again, it’s impossible to think of them going into the studio to write a song and coming up with something like ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ out of the blue. But if you were to ask McCartney, he was only following in the footsteps of every artist in his record collection.

Then again, the man never prided himself as a rock and roll snob. As long as it got him moving and had a catchy melody, it was alright for him to throw on in the background, but that didn’t always mean he had the coolest taste, either. Lennon had poked fun at Macca every chance he could for making granny music, but listening to some of his more lighthearted material, it’s not like he couldn’t pull off that retro style, either.

In fact, McCartney may have been the most musically adept of all his bandmates during their initial run. George Harrison had paid special attention to mastering every guitar lick he could, but from the guitar solos he’d lay down to the juicy basslines he came up with to the impressive drum grooves, McCartney practised the kind of well-rounded musicianship that many of us hope to achieve but will never quite touch.

And while that expertise came from listening to everything from jazz to classical music, he always returned to rock and roll for a reason. Although Lennon was into rock and roll in his teens because of its rebellious nature in the beginning, Macca felt something visceral whenever he listened to the music. He didn’t have to be a delinquent like everyone claimed rock and rollers were like, but he knew that something lit a fire in him when he heard Little Richard sing.

Because, outside of the other founding fathers of rock and roll, like Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, Richard didn’t care one bit about whether or not people liked his voice. He was always going to leave his best moments on the stage, and whenever he hollered in that throaty register on ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Keep A-Knockin’, McCartney knew that his entire mission in life was to make something that sounded like that.

Even when going back to his roots by making the covers album Run Devil Run, he didn’t try to hide the fact that Richard was responsible for everything he did when talking about the song ‘Shake A Hand’, saying, “I love that so much, I love to do that one. So we did it, and it’s kind of…it’s like a gospelly song. So I did that pretty much like Richard did it. He taught me everything I knew. ‘Paul, you know I taught you everything…’ It’s true, it’s true, Richard.”

And given how many people followed McCartney’s lead, Richard’s estate could definitely be owed some royalties for what he gave to the world, with the former just being the tip of the iceberg. Following the covers of his songs, it’s not that hard to draw a straight line from ‘Long Tall Sally’ to ‘Helter Skelter’ and nearly every other heavy metal that came afterwards, whether that’s Robert Plant aping his style or James Hetfield’s signature bark.

That may have given way to a generation of metal singers trying to out-high-note each other, but that was a small price to pay for exciting kids at rock’s inception. Because from day one, Little Richard was looking to thrill every audience he came in contact with, and by the time The Beatles started rising to prominence, they all but ensured that his music would be a part of pop culture until the end of time.