22. The early Beatles were modeled after Buddy Holly on stage
With the exception of hairstyles, the Beatles appeared to American audiences as Buddy Holly had to British the preceding decade; guitars, bass, and drums, layered vocals, and a bow to the audience following a number. Holly had by then been dead five years, and though his records were still receiving airplay, his visual memory had faded. But not to the British acts, which had imitated him faithfully during their development. When Paul McCartney sang Long Tall Sally it was in a voice taught to him by its composer, Little Richard, during a tour in England in which the Beatles had shared the bill with the rock and roll pioneer.
Little Richard too had been largely forgotten in the United States by the important teen audience, having switched to gospel music following a religious experience in the late 1950s. He had returned to rock and roll in the early 1960s in Britain (when he toured with the Beatles) but his career had not recovered in the United States by the time the Beatles arrived. American teens heard his music, through the voice of Paul McCartney, without knowing that McCartney was imitating the man who had brought the song to Britain from America just a few years earlier.
