Little Richard: Difference between revisions

Little Richard

Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5 1932), better known by the stage name Little Richard, is a celebrated American singer, songwriter and pianist, who began performing in the 1940s and was a key figure in the transition from rhythm & blues to rock and roll in the 1950s.

Penniman's reputation rests on a string of groundbreaking hit singles from 1955 through 1957, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Lucille" and "Long Tall Sally", which helped lay the foundation for rock and roll music, and influenced generations of rhythm and blues, rock and soul music artists. Little Richard's injection of funk during this period, via his saxaphone-studded mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, also influenced the development of that genre of music. He was subsequently honored by being one of seven of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and was one of only four of these honorees (along with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Fats Domino) to also receive the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award.

Little Richard's early work was a mix of boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues and gospel music, but with a heavily accentuated back-beat, funky saxophone grooves and raspy shouted vocals, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections that marked a new kind of music. In 1957, while at the height of stardom, he became a born-again Christian, enrolled in and attended Bible college, and withdrew from recording and performing secular music. Claiming he was called to be an evangelist, he has since devoted large segments of his life to this calling.

Little Richard has earned wide praise from many other performers. James Brown called Little Richard his idol and credited him with "first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat." Smokey Robinson said Penniman's music was "the start of that driving, funky, never let up rock 'n' roll;", while Dick Clark described his music as "the model for almost every rock and roll performer of the '50s and years thereafter." Ray Charles asserted that Little Richard was "the man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today." In his high school year book, Bob Dylan declared that his ambition was "to follow Little Richard." In 1969, Elvis Presley told Little Richard, "Your music has inspired me - you are the greatest.". Otis Redding, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Dick Dale, Bob Seger, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and numerous other rock n roll icons have also cited Little Richard as being their first major influence. He was chosen as the 8th greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone, although at least six of the seven artists that preceeded him on the list were heavily influenced by his music, and, he was the person who cited himself as the 8th best artist of all time.

Biography

Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, to Leva Mae Stewart and Charles ("Bud") Penniman, a bootlegger. He grew up in a religious family, amid poverty and racism, and it was singing that made his family feel closer to God. His family had a group called the Penniman Singers, who would go around and sing in local churches, and enter contests with other singing families. Richard's siblings called him 'War Hawk' because of his loud, screaming singing voice. His paternal grandfather, Walter Penniman, was a preacher, and his father's family were members of the Foundation Templar African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Macon, Georgia. Richard's maternal grandmother was a member of the Holiness Temple Baptist Church, also in Macon. Richard regularly attended the New Hope Baptist Church in Macon, where his mother was a member. However, of all the churches he frequented, Richard's favorite were the Pentecostal churches because of the music and the fun he and his friends would have doing the holy dance and talking in tongues along with members of the congregation. When he was as young as ten, he would go around as a healer, singing Gospel songs and touching people, who would testify that they felt better after he ministered to them. Inspired by Brother Joe May, a singing evangelist known as 'The Thunderbolt of the West', Richard wanted to become a preacher. It was in and through the church where Richard's life in music all began.

Nearly all of Richard Penniman's dramatic phrasing and swift vocal turns are derived from Black Gospel artists of the 1930s and 1940s. He referred to Sister Rosetta Tharpe as his favorite singer when he was a child. She had invited him to sing a song with her onstage at the Macon City Auditorium in 1945, after hearing him sing before the concert. The crowd applauded and cheered and she paid him more money than he had ever seen after the show. He was also heavily influenced by Marion Williams, from whom he got the trademark "whoooo" in his vocal, Mahalia Jackson, and Brother Joe May. He was heavily influenced in appearance (hair, clothing, shoes, makeup, etc.) and sound by late 1940s gospel-style, jump blues shouter Billy Wright, who was known as the 'Prince of the Blues'. It is reported that he got one of the inflections ("Lucille-uh") in his vocal from Ruth Brown.

One of Penniman's main influences on his piano-playing was Esquerita (Eskew Reeder Jr.), who demonstrated to Penniman how to play high notes without compromising bass. Penniman met Esquerita when he traveled through Macon with a preacher named Sister Rosa. Another influence was Brother Joe May. Penniman explained, "I used to get in a room and try to make my piano sound just like him. He had so much energy." May generated energy by moving from a subtle whisper to a thunderous tenor and back in a four-bar phrase.

He learned to mix ministerial qualities with theatrics by watching the traveling medicine shows that rolled through his native Macon. Colorful medicine men would wear lavish capes, robes and turbans, all of which left an impression on Penniman.

In 1951, Penniman won a talent show in Atlanta, which resulted in a recording contract with RCA. In 1952, Penniman's father was murdered. After this, he returned to Macon and performed blues and boogie-woogie music at the "Tick Tock Club" in the evenings. He went on to record for Peacock Records in Houston from 1951 to 1954. Modeled after jump blues recording artist Billy Wright, he recorded songs including "Little Richard's Boogie". These records sold poorly and Penniman had little success until he sent a demo tape to Specialty Records on February 17, 1955. Specialty's owner, Art Rupe, purchased Richard's contract from Peacock and placed Richard's career in the hands of A&R man Robert "Bumps" Blackwell. Blackwell had nurtured and groomed Ray Charles (then known as R.C. Robinson) and Quincy Jones at the start of their careers in the music business.

Blackwell had intended to pit Little Richard against Ray Charles and B.B. King by having him record blues tracks. He arranged for a recording session at Cosimo Matassa's recording studio in New Orleans in the late summer of 1955, when, during a break, Penniman began singing an impromptu recital of "Tutti Frutti", in his raspy, shouted vocal style, while pounding out a boogie-woogie based rhythm on the piano. Blackwell, who knew a hit when he heard one, was knocked out and had Little Richard record the song. However, in order to make it commercially acceptable, he had Little Richard's lyrics changed from "tutti-frutti, loose booty" to "tutti frutti, aw rooty." The song was released on Specialty in late 1955, and became the first of Richard's many hits.

The song, with Little Richard shouting its unique introductory "A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-whop-bam-boom!", was the start of a rapid succession of Little Richard hit songs, characterized by a driving piano, boogie-woogie bass, funky saxophone arrangements, and screams before sax solos performed by Lee Allen, such as "Long Tall Sally", "Lucille", "Rip It Up", "The Girl Can't Help It", "Slippin' and Slidin'", "Jenny, Jenny", "Good Golly, Miss Molly", and "Keep A-Knockin'". His performing style can be seen in such period films as Don't Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can't Help It (also 1956), for which he sang the title song.

In the commercial fashion of the day, several of his early hits were re-recorded in other styles. Little Richard's first national success, "Tutti Frutti," was covered by Pat Boone, whose version outdid the source record, #12 to #17. Boone also released a version of "Long Tall Sally," with slightly bowdlerized lyrics. But this time, the Little Richard original outperformed it on the Billboard charts, #6 to #8. Bill Haley tackled Little Richard's third major hit, "Rip It Up," but again, Little Richard prevailed. With the record-buying public's preference established, Little Richard's subsequent releases did not face the same chart competition.

Then, suddenly, when at the top of the music world, Little Richard, fearing his own damnation, abandoned rock and roll music to become a born again Christian, in which he was called to be an evangelist. Although his secular music career in the 1950's was rather brief, his impact on twentieth and twenty-first century music was incalculable and arguably unparalleled.

While Little Richard's retreat to the faith in which he was groomed as a child resulted in an abrupt halt to the recording style that made him famous and changed the world of music, he continued in an out of rock n roll and the ministry into the twenty-first century. He recorded only Gospel music after his spiritual conversion from 1957 to the early 1960s, claiming at the time that rock music was of the devil and that it was not possible to be a rocker and please God at the same time. He was married in 1959.

In 1963, with the Beatles as his opening act, on a tour of parts of Europe, Little Richard backslid from the ministry and his calling. He returned to recording and performing secular material. He was divorced in 1964. That year, he again toured Europe with a then unknown band by the name of Rolling Stones. In 1964, he brought a fledgling Jimi Hendrix into his band. In 1966, the Hendrix was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." Little Richard had minor hits in the 1960s and 1970s, although not with the greater success of his 1950s recordings.

In 1977, following the death of a nephew that he loved as a son, he repented for his wayward living and returned to evangelism. He then recorded more Gospel music and remained fully in the ministry until the mid-1980s. He also represented Memorial Bibles International and sold their Black Heritage Bible, which highlighted the many people in the Bible who were Black. In many sermons during this period, he once again proclaimed that it was not possible to perform rock and serve God at the same time.

In the mid-1980s, the world's attention was refocused on Little Richard, following the release of Charles White's critically acclaimed, authorized biography "The Life and Times of Little Richard", in which he candidly explains his struggles with and repentence from substance abuse and homosexuality. At the same time, the new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honored Little Richard as one of the first inductees. This resulted in a show business comeback for Little Richard.

In 1986, Little Richard finally reconciled his role as a minister and as a rock and roll artist. He recorded an album of inspirational songs for Warner Brother Records that he called "message music" and "messages in rhythm." He had his old friend Billy Preston help him write a song with spiritual lyrics but sounded like rock and roll for the soundtrack of the motion picture Down and Out in Beverly Hills in which he also co-starred. The result was "Great Gosh A'Mighty", which became a hit and received critical acclaim for his acting performance.

He made a commitment to his mother before she passed away that he would stay a Christian. He said that he would, "stay with the Lord and just travel around." He began performing his old classic rock and roll hits in the late 1980's, but continued to evangelize by performing some Gospel material in his original rocking style, testifying to people on and off-stage, distributing a born again Christian booklet, and reminding people of God's love for them on his photographs.

Through the remainder of the 1980s, 1990s and into the twenty-first century, Little Richard has remained a popular guest on television, in music videos, commercials, movies and as a recording artist. He has contributed new recordings to movie soundtracks (ex. Twins, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Why Do Fools Fall in Love) and wrote and performed a song for the 2001 film The Trumpet of the Swan. He also sang background vocals on the U2 / BB King hit song "When Love Comes to Town," and in the extended "Live From The Kingdom Mix" of the track he preaches as well, sometimes amid funky saxophone playing. Penniman appeared on Living Colour's "Elvis Is Dead", and also recorded new tracks for tribute albums, such as Folkways: A Vision Shared ("The Rock Island Line", backed by Fishbone) (1989) and Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to Johnny Cash ("Get Rhythm") (2002). He also recorded duets in the 1990s with Jon Bon Jovi, Hank Williams Jr., Living Colour, Elton John, Tanya Tucker, Solomon Burke, and in 2006 with Jerry Lee Lewis, in which they covered the Little Richard-influenced, early 1960s, hit Beatles track "I Saw Her Standing There". He also recently headlined the University of Texas event "40 Acres Fest".

In the 1990's, World Championship Wrestling (WCW) catapulted Macon, Georgia wrestler Marc Mero, under the ring name Johnny B. Badd, to stardom with the gimmick of a Little Richard look-alike., due to Mero's resemblance to the singer.

In 2006 he was a judge on Celebrity Duets. In 2006/2007 he was featured in a Geico advertisement, wherein he uses his signature "whoop" to denote the joy he would receive while consuming "mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce" at a Thanksgiving dinner. In 2007 his song "All Around The World" was featured on a Cravendale Advertisement for an animation by PicPic which features a cow, a pirate, and a cyclist. In 2007, he also performed at the Capitol Fourth - a July 4th celebration (televised live on PBS) in front of the White House in Washington D.C. In 2001, he performed at the July 4th music event in Dublin, Ohio.

On July 25th, 2007, he made an appearance on the ABC show The Next Best Thing.

On Novemember 22, 2007, he headlined the halftime show for the Thanksgiving football game of Arizona State University vs. the University of Southern California at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. It was broadcasted on ESPN.

On February 10, 2008, he made an appearance at the 50th Grammy Awards, performing "Good Golly, Miss Molly" with Jerry Lee Lewis and John Fogerty.

Awards/honors

• In 1956, Cashbox awarded Little Richard the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for his second hit single "Long Tall Sally".
• In 1986, Little Richard was one of the first group of recording artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• In 1990, Little Richard was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• In 1993, he then received a Honorary Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
• In 1994, Little Richard was the fourth recording artist (the others being Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown) to be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
• In 1995, He received two Keys to the City of Providence, RI, one awarded spontaneously, on stage, by the Mayor, Vincent "Buddy" Cianci
• In 1997, he received the American Music Award of Merit.
• In 2002, BMI, during the 50th Annual BMI Pop Awards celebration, Little Richard, along with Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, were awarded the first BMI Icon Awards in recognition of their “unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.” The same year, he was inducted into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Hall of Fame for having "distinguished himself as not only an unparalleled musical genius, but also as a unique and innovative performing artist—fusing pure vocal talent with exhilarating showmanship."
• In 2003, Little Richard was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
• In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Little Richard #8 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Although, at least six of the seven artists which preceded him on the list were heavily influenced by Little Richard and his music (which he pointed out in the article).
• In 2006, Little Richard was inducted into the Apollo Theater Legends Hall of Fame, at the same time as Ella Fitzgerald (who was one of the first winners of 'Amateur Night at the Apollo' in 1934) and Gladys Knight & the Pips.
• In 2007, Little Richard's 1955 original hit 'Tutti Frutti' topped Mojo (magazine)'s poll of "The Top 100 Records That Changed The World."

Discography

• See Little Richard discography

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References

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External links

• Little Richard biography at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Little Richard biography at the Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Little Richard in Rolling Stones Top 10 Artists of all Time
• Little Richard MySpace Site
• Little Richard Tribute at Digitaldreamdoor.com
• Little Richard News site
• Little Richard biography with pictures
• Album reviews
• "Little Richard" Penniman (entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia)