“’Tutti Frutti really started the races being together,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. In September 1955, the musician cut a lyrically cleaned-up version of “Tutti Frutti,” which became his first hit, peaking at 17 on the pop chart. (He also cowrote “Long Tall Sally” while working that same job.)īy coincidence, label owner and producer Art Rupe was in search of a lead singer for some tracks he wanted to cut in New Orleans, and Penniman’s howling delivery fit the bill. He came up with the song’s famed chorus - “a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom” - while bored washing dishes. “I always did have that thing, but I didn’t know what to do with the thing I had.”ĭuring this low point, he sent a tape with a rough version of a bawdy novelty song called “Tutti Frutti” to Specialty Records in Chicago. “I put that little thing in it,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970 of the way he tweaked with his gospel roots. By then, only one track he’d cut, “Little Richard’s Boogie,” hinted at the musical tornado to come.
I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared.”īy 1956, he was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station in Macon (a job he had first taken a few years earlier after his father was murdered and Little Richard had to support his family). “When I started singing, I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn’t like it. “When I first came along, I never heard any rock & roll,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. (He became “Little Richard” when he about 15 years old, when the R&B and blues worlds were filled with acts like Little Esther and Little Milton he had also grown tired with people mispronouncing his last name as “Penny-man.”) He learned his distinctive piano style from Esquerita, a South Carolina singer and pianist who also wore his hair in a high black pompadour.įor the next five years, Little Richard’s career advanced only fitfully fairly tame, conventional singles he cut for RCA and other labels didn’t chart. But music stayed with him: One of his boyhood friends was Otis Redding, and Penniman heard R&B, blues and country while working at a concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium.Īfter performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Penniman landed his first record deal, with RCA, in 1951. Although he sang in a nearby church, his father Bud wasn’t supportive of his son’s music and accused him of being gay, resulting in Penniman leaving home at 13 and moving in with a white family in Macon. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”īorn Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5th, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989 before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup and glass-bead shirts – also set the standard for rock and roll showmanship Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Elvis popularized ,” Steven Van Zandt tweeted after the news broke. His songs became part of the rock and roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. Little Richard Reflects on the Dawn of Rock & Roll, Influencing the Beatles and StonesĪlthough he never hit the top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. Little Richard: Questlove, Brian Wilson and More Pay Tribute to 'King of Rock n' Roll'įlashback: Little Richard Performs a Blazing 'Long Tall Sally' in 1956 Jerry Lee is a very intricate piano player and very skillful, but Little Richard is more of a pounder.”
I’m more of a Little Richard stylist than a Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. “I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it,” Elton John told Rolling Stone in 1973.
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Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics. The musician’s son, Danny Jones Penniman, confirmed the pioneer’s death to Rolling Stone, adding that the cause of death was cancer. Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday.
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