Long Tall Sally: History and Key Facts

"Long Tall Sally", also known as "Long Tall Sally (The Thing)", is a rock and roll song written by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Enotris Johnson, and Little Richard and released on Richard's album Here's Little Richard. Richard recorded it for Specialty Records, which released it as a single in March 1956, backed with "Slippin' and Slidin'".

The single reached number one on the Billboard rhythm and blues chart, staying at the top for six of 19 weeks, while peaking at number six on the pop chart. It received the Cash Box Triple Crown Award in 1956. The song as sung by Little Richard is listed at number 55 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It also ranked at number 45 on Billboard's year-end singles of 1956.

It became one of the singer's best-known hits and has become a rock and roll standard covered by hundreds of artists, including Elvis Presley, Fleetwood Mac, the Kinks and the Beatles.

In 1999, the 1956 Little Richard recording of "Long Tall Sally" on Specialty Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Long Tall Sally by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.