The Beauty's STILL on duty

When I was wallowing in the "Cosmino Matassa Story" - 4 CD set (absolutely stunning - if you wanna hear the language of vintage rock and roll being wrought - here it is!) the Little Richard tracks included got me contemplating the wonder of this man and his importance to modern music - which is, frankly, incalculable. I had a single disc Specialty collection which is largely sublime already. Bought the Charlie Gillett biography -- which Richard did extensive interviews for and which COULDA been issued as an autobiography "as told to." Wuddever. And that's as trippy and outrageous as I'd've hoped and that I remember reviewers noting.

This leads me to keep contemplating picking up his Reprise recordings, already owning "King of Rock N Roll" on vinyl. Rhino has a box with all three recordings that's a bit pricey - but you can also score each separately for about $7 -- so price wise that's more attractive a proposition.

BUT every time I'm grazing Amazon's listings I kept stopping at "Little Richard: 5 Great Albums +" = "Import-only four CD set containing six of the Rock 'n' Roll pioneer's album plus bonus tracks. Includes the albums Here's Little Richard, Little Richard Vol. 2, The Fabulous Little Richard, Pray Along Vol. 1, and Pray Along Vol. 2." and THAT sells for $7.50 NEW. And considering that used copies of his first two albums sell for about that APIECE -- hard to beat this deal - not with a stick! So I put in my order yesterday. Of course the mastering could suck - any accompanying artwork could blow -- tho in this pure content culture that's not so hard to deal with (esp. once you've learned to accepted the JSP Jelly Roll Morton box - I think the liner notes are literally written in 3 point type! and there's no sorta design consistency between each piece in the set - but - for $15 -- ya get a lotta insanely wonderful music)