Talk:Long Tall Sally

Authors

I removed the Weblink to Enotris Johnson. He has nothing to do with a girl called Enortis Johnson, who has given the starting words of the song on a paper to Bumps Blackwell. In Internet, everybody copies the wrong story from allmusic.com, where some strange things about Richards youth are claimed. In the authorised biography by Charles "Dr. Rock" White "The Life And Times of Little Richard" you can find the true story. 88.65.75.179 19:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Pat Boone's version

If you are interested, here is a link to an article wherein Boone talks about the fact that there were, and still are in my opinion, different markets for different versions of songs by different artists. He points out, that, as I have found, black artists were very popular when they recorded in a style that appealed to the much larger popular record buying public. [1] This is something that Chuck Berry did quite deliberately. Steve Pastor 19:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The bit about Penniman wishing to record a song that would be too fast for Boone to cover sounds utterly apocryphal, not to say absurd. After all, tempo is the most easily varied element of any composition, witness the Beatles' version, noticeably slower than the original, while Presley's was actually somewhat faster.Orthotox (talk) 08:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

More on Enotris Johnson

I've seen at least 3 stories about Enotris Johnson. One has him as the adoptive father of Richard Penniman, another has her as the step-sister of RP, and one is the story in the article about the girl. The last story is attributed to Robert Blackwell, but there is no proper citation for the story so as it stands it cannot be verified. Enotris Johnson is also credited for "Jenny, Jenny", and (IMO) that makes the Blackwell story in the article hard to believe. I don't have any books about Richard Penniman or Robert Blackwell. Can someone with access to reliable info update the article? Without sources, this section is unverifiable. If reliable sources can't be found, the Enotris Johnson story should be removed. — John Cardinal (talk) 14:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The source for Blackwell's story about the origin of "Long Tall Sally" is Charles White's biography about Little Richard referenced in the article . The girl's full name is stated there as "Enortis Johnson", although elsewhere it is usually written as "Enotris". The fact that Enortis Johnson also appears as co-author of "Jenny, Jenny" might be due to a concession from Blackwell and Richard to Honey Chile, who was interested in helping Johnson financially and had provided them with material for what proved to be a No. 1 hit. At that time it was not uncommon to use songwriting credits as a way to compensate or favour individuals for other reasons than participating in the song's writing, even at the expense of the real writers. However, in this case that is mere speculation on my part. It is simply to suggest that Blackwell's account could be true in spite of Johnson being credited in more than one song. Regarding alternative stories about Johnson, according to author W. T. Lhamon, Jr. (whose source is Langdon Winner in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock'n'Roll) Richard lived with "white club owners Ann and Johnny Johnson" when he was thirteen, therefore his adoptive father – if he can be called that – would not qualify as Enotris. [2] If the Johnsons had a daughter called Enotris who could be considered Richard's step-sister, I could not say. Incidentally, "Mis Ann" is credited to Penniman and an Edward Johnson.Dauphine~enwiki (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

References

There is information about Enotris Olivia Johnson (October 3, 1935 – August 2, 2015) on sites including this and this (and a photo of her at Ancestry.com). None of these meet WP's reliable sources criteria, of course, but they seem to me to be perfectly likely to be true and accurate. Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:58, 12 February 2022 (UTC) PS: Here is a brief obituary, and here is an article about her. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

No Beatles?

There's no info on the Beatles version in the main text? That seems kind of wrong. Obviously the Little Richard version is more important, but it seems like at least a mention of the Beatles cover would be warranted. Hell, the Pat Boone version gets more coverage in this article. MrBook (talk) 14:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - critics have called it one of The Beatles' best covers, with McCartney's vocal getting particular praise. Definitely notable enough for its own section.--Pawnkingthree (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I was just going to mention this myself. There really should be a personnel for The Beatles' version. If someone can add the personnel, please do so! :) ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 23:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I've taken steps to rectify this now. Jellyman (talk) 17:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Re: the statement that the Beatles recorded many Little Richard songs. I can't think of another one. What other Little Richard songs are you referring to? --Daveler16 (talk) 05:33, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Two years too late! I don't think they formally recorded any other JLL songs, although according to Mark Lewisohn, they performed 11 of his songs - or at least that he had also performed.

However, for the Beatles version, George is listed as lead guitarist - I have a vague memory that John played one of the solos, George the other one. I'll try and look it up.

Apepper (talk) 11:28, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Controversial lyrical meaning

It's always been my understanding that the lyrics of this song are coded references to the transsexual and homosexual scene. "The Misery" is an STD (probably the Clap), 'bald-headed Sally' is probably a man (women were not commonly bald in the mid-50s), and "Aunt Mary" was one of the most common ways to refer to another gay man ('Mary' is still pretty common among gay men even today). I don't have sources for any of this though, so I'm not going to add to the article (unless a hair crawls up my ass and I feel like finding citations (or perhaps finding I'm wrong).Eaglizard (talk) 04:42, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Without a reliable source for this, we have nothing to add or discuss here. - SummerPhD^v2.0 16:19, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

The interpretation of the lyrics of "Long Tall Sally" as coded references to the homosexual scene is supported in an article by author W. T. Lhamon, Jr.[3] Dauphine~enwiki (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

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