[2] The album's twelve tracks were produced by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell and recorded in New Orleans and Los Angeles in a highly collaborative process.

[7] In 2012, musicologist Lee Hildebrand stated "swing and shuffle beats had been the primary pulse of rhythm & blues until Richard introduced the even eights that would come to drive most R&B and rock music".

[11] The follow-up to "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", was initially titled "The Thing" and was cut three times on different dates before Rupe was satisfied.

In addition to the hallmarks carried over from "Tutti Frutti" such as Richard's falsetto "woo"s and his hammering boogie-woogie-styled piano, "Long Tall Sally" features a rapid fire vocal delivery.

[15] Assembled by Art Rupe, the album compiles Richard's six hit songs from 1955–56 alongside six previously unreleased cuts with each recording featuring his distinctive "totally untameable, anarchic vocal style" pushed forward.

[16][17][18][19] Among the new songs on the album, "Can't Believe You Wanna Leave" has been described as a "chugging blues lament" that, along with "Oh Why", resembles the "sedentary style of Fats Domino".

[28] A less favourable notice came from the Duncannon Record, whose anonymous reviewer commented "the full treatment did not altogether convince me that rock is my salvation in the realm of the arts.

[29] Among retrospective reviews, Mark Deming of AllMusic commented that "these 12 tunes may not represent the alpha and omega of Little Richard's best music, but every song is a classic and unlike many of his peers, time has refused to render this first album quaint -- Richard's grainy scream remains one of the great sounds in rock & roll history, and the thunder of his piano and the frantic wail of the band is still the glorious call of a Friday night with pay in the pocket and trouble in mind".

[24] Writing for Time in 2010, Alan Light described the album as "glorious anarchy, let loose by a crack team of New Orleans musicians with the most distinctive, most outrageous voice of them all leading the charge".

[34] Similarly, Plasketes wrote that the record's songs impacted the vocals and performance styles of performers including Otis Redding, James Brown, Richard Berry, Etta James, Big Al Downing and Thurston Harris, while noting that the record's more animated songs would later attract interpreters such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, John Fogerty, Mitch Ryder and the Rolling Stones.