In Don McLean’s song, “American Pie”, the lyric “when the music died” refers to the plane crash that killed early rockers Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Well we feel the music died again today, with the death of rock pioneer, Little Richard. Not only did Little Richard bring us straight up, four-to-the-floor rock and roll, as a poor black gay kid from Macon, Ga he broke every possible social and ethnic barrier you could imagine along the way. This IROCKU Tip celebrate’s Little Richard’s keyboard style with a twelve-bar blues progression using his straight eighth-note left hand pattern and explosive right hand rhythms. We begin the lesson with an overview of the 12 bar blues progression (in C) that was the foundation of so many Little Richard songs, such as "Lucille". We then introduce …
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