Talk:Long Tall Sally

message: 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)
thread_title: Authors

message: 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.  This is something that Chuck Berry did quite deliberately. Steve Pastor 19:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pat Boone's version

message: 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)
replies: text: 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.  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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: More on Enotris Johnson

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: I've taken steps to rectify this now. Jellyman (talk) 17:16, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: No Beatles?

message: 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)
replies: text: Without a reliable source for this, we have nothing to add or discuss here. - SummerPhDv2.0 16:19, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  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. Dauphine~enwiki (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversial lyrical meaning 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Long Tall Sally. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050115062320/http://www.mp3.com/bumps-blackwell/artists/39690/summary.html to http://www.mp3.com/bumps-blackwell/artists/39690/summary.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:17, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified