Little Richard 1957 Rock 'N' Roll / R&B Concert Poster w/10 Hit Acts on the Bill. ...

Description

Little Richard 1957 Rock 'N' Roll / R&B Concert Poster w/10 Hit Acts on the Bill. An original large cardboard window card created to sell tickets for Little Richard, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Junior Parker, the 5 Royales, Wynonie Harris, Big Maybelle, Jimmy Reed and three others at the Chattanooga Memorial Auditorium on Thursday, August 8, 1957.

Little Richard headlined the activities, and he simply could not have been hotter. At the time of this show in the summer of '57, his last three singles (all from this year) had been "The Girl Can't Help It," "Lucille" and "Jenny, Jenny." And his next two singles on Specialty Records following this event were "Keep A Knockin'" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly." Good golly, indeed! This poster was designed and printed by the forever popular Globe Posters of Baltimore, MD, measures 22 1/8" x 22 1/4" and grades to Very Good* condition. COA from Heritage Auctions.

More Information: Are you OK if all the rock 'n' roll and R&B musicians on this poster tallied up over a hundred Top 20 R&B hits during their collective careers? If you want to be stingier and say "Top 10 only, please," the number is still an astounding 81.

The legendary Bobby "Blue" Bland somehow got very high billing, but he had never appeared on the charts at all when this poster was printed. But just a week or two after this show, his first hit, "Farther Up the Road," hit the Billboard R&B chart and went straight to #1. Bobby would chart 62 more R&B records before he was done. But the fact he was brand new probably resulted in no photo of him on this window card.

Then again, neither did Junior Parker and His Band get a picture, although he had a Top 10 hit earlier this year. The "5" Royales definitely get their photo on there, however, because they had achieved six Top 10 R&B hits up to this point, and the following month would launch their seventh and last, "Think."

Wynonie "Mr. Blues" Harris had been an R&B hitmaking machine right after World War II, and with 15 hits to his credit, it's amazing that he never did worse than the Top 10... every one of his hits achieved that level. No half-baked hits for Mr. Blues, it was either all or nothing with him, with a lot more of the all.

Big Maybelle placed four strong R&B hits on the charts in the mid-50's, giving her lots to grin about in that lovely photo. Tab Smith had a couple of R&B Top 10's in his career, and gets a very prominent photo with his alto sax.

Jimmy Reed is a blues legend who had racked up nine R&B hits by this point, and his very next one was "Honest I Do" (#4 R&B), covered by the Rolling Stones on their debut album seven years later.

The bottom line features Noble Watts and his Band and Tony Harris, but neither of them ever saw any chart action. The provenance of this poster is very strong, in that it came directly from the late show promoter Ted Bryant's daughter.

Condition details: The board has brown toning around all four edges from decades of storage. There's a ½" tear in the upper left corner area, which you can barely see in the toning. The lower right corner has a couple of creases; yes, one hits the "S" but is barely detectable. The more prominent one, 2" long and horizontal, is all down in the white.


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