Little Richard Right Now! Record Store Day 2024 Vinyl Edition

The Architect of Rock and Roll’s 1973 release returns on Sunflare colored Vinyl available for Record Store Day. Newly restored and remastered, the updated artwork contains new liner notes from Bill Dahl. Right Now!, its genesis, and recording are relatively mysterious. Per Richard’s autobiography, the set was cut in one night with Robert “Bumps” Blackwell in order to secure funds for an upcoming tour. Other than “In The Name” carrying a recording date of January, 1973, that’s all of the information we have. No songwriters are listed on the artwork, and while “Dock Of The Bay” and “Chains Of Love” looked (and are) familiar, the track “Chain Chain Chain” was in fact the Aretha Franklin classic “Chain Of Fools.” While Richard calls out musicians’ names in the recordings, who they actually are is speculation. What is known is that the album is a scorcher. Richard’s barrelhouse keyboards set the tracks jumping—running in length from under three to over eight minutes. There are soul ballads (“Don’t You Know I”), stompers (“Geraldine Jones”), and slow blues. Had Richard and Blackwell known that the release would come out as unadorned and poorly distributed as it did, they might have had reservations. But, out it came on a budget label, and was relegated to the cutout bins and never reissued until now.