Little Richard ~ Rest In Peace

[BeauJangles]

Some of you will remember Little Richard. He was outspoken and pretty outrageous music entertainer. Talented too. Little Richard, born Richard Penniman, began his singing and piano playing as a young boy in church. His strong roots remained in gospel music for some years. He then carried his talent from the south and headed north for a contract t0 began a career in R&B and rock 'n' roll. Bouffant hair, heavy makeup, and flashy clothes became Little Richard's style. A couple of his top hits were, Long Tall Sally and Tutti Frutti. The rest is history.

Well, not quite. He had felt a call on his life to preach and entertain for the Lord, but struggled with issues of gender preferences. Later on in life, came back to serving Jesus and renounced the former struggles he once had. Then all of a sudden converted to Judaism much to everyone's surprise. Hmm. Well, interesting the flamboyant wigs, makeup, and the outfits started becoming his thing again. He also did a number of commercials, including Taco Bell. He passed away only a few hours ago at the age of 87. God bless you, Little Richard. At least you tried.

   

Little Richard, Flamboyant Wild Man of Rock ’n’ Roll, Dies at 87

Delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, and screaming as if for his very life, he created something new, thrilling and dangerous.

Little Richard in performance at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York in 2007. “He was crucial,” one historian said, “in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock ’n’ roll.”Credit...Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

 

By Tim Weiner

• May 9, 2020Updated 11:26 a.m. ET

• Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard, who combined the sacred shouts of the black church and the profane sounds of the blues to create some of the world’s first and most influential rock ’n’ roll records, died on Saturday morning. He was 87.

 

His death was confirmed by his son, Danny Jones Penniman, who said the cause was cancer. He did not say where his father died.

Little Richard did not invent rock ’n’ roll. Other musicians had already been mining a similar vein by the time he recorded his first hit, “Tutti Frutti” — a raucous song about sex, its lyrics cleaned up but its meaning hard to miss — in a New Orleans recording studio in September 1955. Chuck Berry and Fats Domino had reached the pop Top 10, Bo Diddley had topped the rhythm-and-blues charts, and Elvis Presley had been making records for a year.

 

But Little Richard, delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before — something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous. As the rock historian Richie Unterberger put it, “He was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock ’n’ roll.”

 

 

Art Rupe of Specialty Records, the label for which he recorded his biggest hits, called Little Richard “dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild.”

 

“Tutti Frutti” rocketed up the charts and was quickly followed by “Long Tall Sally” and other records now acknowledged as classics. His live performances were electrifying.

 

“He’d just burst onto the stage from anywhere, and you wouldn’t be able to hear anything but the roar of the audience,” the record producer and arranger H.B. Barnum, who played saxophone with Little Richard early in his career, recalled in “The Life and Times of Little Richard” (1984), an authorized biography by Charles White. “He’d be on the stage, he’d be off the stage, he’d be jumping and yelling, screaming, whipping the audience on.”

 

An Immeasurable Influence

Rock ’n’ roll was an unabashedly macho music in its early days, but Little Richard, who had performed in drag as a teenager, presented a very different picture onstage: gaudily dressed, his hair piled six inches high, his face aglow with cinematic makeup. He was fond of saying in later years that if Elvis was the king of rock ’n’ roll, he was the queen. Offstage, he characterized himself variously as gay, bisexual and “omnisexual.”

 

His influence as a performer was immeasurable. It could be seen and heard in the flamboyant showmanship of James Brown, who idolized him (and used some of his musicians when Little Richard began a long hiatus from performing in 1957), and of Prince, whose ambisexual image owed a major debt to his.

 

 

Presley recorded his songs. The Beatles adopted his trademark sound, an octave-leaping exultation: “Woooo!” (Paul McCartney said that the first song he ever sang in public was “Long Tall Sally,” which he later recorded with the Beatles.) Bob Dylan wrote in his high school yearbook that his ambition was “to join Little Richard.”

 

Little Richard’s impact was social as well.

“I’ve always thought that rock ’n’ roll brought the races together,” Mr. White quoted him as saying. “Especially being from the South, where you see the barriers, having all these people who we thought hated us showing all this love.”

 

Mr. Barnum told Mr. White that “they still had the audiences segregated” at concerts in the South in those days, but that when Little Richard performed, “most times, before the end of the night, they would all be mixed together.”

 

If uniting black and white audiences was a point of pride for Little Richard, it was a cause of concern for others, especially in the South. The White Citizens Council of North Alabama issued a denunciation of rock ’n’ roll largely because it brought “people of both races together.” And with many radio stations under pressure to keep black music off the air, Pat Boone’s cleaned-up, toned-down version of “Tutti Frutti” was a bigger hit than Little Richard’s original. (He also had a hit with “Long Tall Sally.”)

 

Still, it seemed that nothing could stop Little Richard’s drive to the top — until he stopped it himself.

 

He was at the height of his fame when he left the United States in late September 1957 to begin a tour in Australia. As he told the story, he was exhausted, under intense pressure from the Internal Revenue Service and furious at the low royalty rate he was receiving from Specialty. Without anyone to advise him, he had signed a contract that gave him half a cent for every record he sold. “Tutti Frutti” had sold half a million copies but had netted him only $25,000.

 

One night in early October, before 40,000 fans at an outdoor arena in Sydney, he had an epiphany.

“That night Russia sent off that very first Sputnik,” he told Mr. White, referring to the first satellite sent into space. “It looked as though the big ball of fire came directly over the stadium about two or three hundred feet above our heads. It shook my mind. It really shook my mind. I got up from the piano and said, ‘This is it. I am through. I am leaving show business to go back to God.’”

 

He had one last Top 10 hit: “Good Golly Miss Molly,” recorded in 1956 but not released until early 1958. By then, he had left rock ’n’ roll behind.

 

 

He became a traveling evangelist. He entered Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Ala., a Seventh-day Adventist school, to study for the ministry. He cut his hair, got married and began recording gospel music.

 

For the rest of his life, he would be torn between the gravity of the pulpit and the pull of the stage.

 

“Although I sing rock ’n’ roll, God still loves me,” he said in 2009. “I’m a rock ’n’ roll singer, but I’m still a Christian.”

 

He was lured back to the stage in 1962, and over the next two years he played to wild acclaim in England, Germany and France. Among his opening acts were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, then at the start of their careers.

 

He went on to tour relentlessly in the United States, with a band that at one time included Jimi Hendrix on guitar. By the end of the 1960s, sold-out performances in Las Vegas and triumphant appearances at rock festivals in Atlantic City and Toronto were sending a clear message: Little Richard was back to stay.

 

But he wasn’t.

‘I Lost My Reasoning’

By his own account, alcohol and cocaine began to sap his soul (“I lost my reasoning,” he would later say), and in 1977, he once again turned from rock ’n’ roll to God. He became a Bible salesman, began recording religious songs again and, for the second time, disappeared from the spotlight.

 

He did not stay away forever. The publication of his biography in 1984 signaled his return to the public eye, and he began performing again.

 

By now, he was as much a personality as a musician. In 1986 he played a prominent role as a record producer in Paul Mazursky’s hit movie “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” On television, he appeared on talk, variety, comedy and awards shows. He officiated at celebrity weddings and preached at celebrity funerals.

 

He could still raise the roof in concert. In December 1992, he stole the show at a rock ’n’ roll revival concert at Wembley Arena in London. “I’m 60 years old today,” he told the audience, “and I still look remarkable.”

 

He continued to look remarkable — with the help of wigs and thick pancake makeup — as he toured intermittently into the 21st century. But age eventually took its toll.

 

By 2007, he was walking onstage with the aid of two canes. In 2012, he abruptly ended a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, telling the crowd, “I can’t hardly breathe.” A year later, he told Rolling Stone magazine that he was retiring.

 

“I am done, in a sense,” he said. “I don’t feel like doing anything right now.”

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Ga., on Dec. 5, 1932, the third of 12 children born to Charles and Leva Mae (Stewart) Penniman. His father was a brick mason who sold moonshine on the side. An uncle, a cousin and a grandfather were preachers, and as a boy he attended Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist and Holiness churches and aspired to be a singing evangelist. An early influence was the gospel singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the first performers to combine a religious message with the urgency of R&B.

 

By the time he was in his teens, Richard’s ambition had taken a detour. He left home and began performing with traveling medicine and minstrel shows, part of a 19th-century tradition that was dying out. By 1948, billed as Little Richard — the name was a reference to his youth and not his physical stature — he was a cross-dressing performer with a minstrel troupe called Sugarfoot Sam From Alabam, which had been touring for decades.

 

In 1951, while singing alongside strippers, comics and drag queens on the Decataur Street strip in Atlanta, he recorded his first songs. The records were generic R&B, with no distinct style, and attracted almost no attention.

 

Around this time, he met two performers whose look and sound would have a profound impact on his own: Billy Wright and S.Q. Reeder, who performed and recorded as Esquerita. They were both accomplished pianists, flashy dressers, flamboyant entertainers and as openly gay as it was possible to be in the South in the 1950s.

 

Little Richard acknowledged his debt to Esquerita, who he said gave him some piano-playing tips, and Mr. Wright, whom he once called “the most fantastic entertainer I had ever seen.” But however much he borrowed from either man, the music and persona that emerged were his own.

 

His break came in 1955, when Mr. Rupe signed him to Specialty and arranged for him to record with local musicians in New Orleans. During a break at that session, he began singing a raucous but obscene song that Mr. Rupe thought had the potential to capture the nascent teenage record-buying audience. Mr. Rupe enlisted a New Orleans songwriter, Dorothy LaBostrie, to clean up the lyrics; the song became “Tutti Frutti”; and a rock ’n’ roll star was born.

 

By the time he stopped performing, Little Richard was in both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (he was inducted in the Hall’s first year) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. “Tutti Frutti” was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2010.

 

If Little Richard ever doubted that he deserved all the honors he received, he never admitted it. “A lot of people call me the architect of rock ’n’ roll,” he once said. “I don’t call myself that, but I believe it’s true.”

Peter Keepnews and Ben Sisario contributed reporting.

[Henry_iain]

Yes I was wondering if anyone would notice. I liked his music (I just listened to some of it). He could certainly play a piano. He was so unique. 

[BeauJangles]

51 minutes ago, Henry_iain said:

Yes I was wondering if anyone would notice. I liked his music (I just listened to some of it). He could certainly play a piano. He was so unique. 

Absolutely unique and talented. We inherited a bunch of 45 rpm records once from my cousin as he was going into the service. There were tons of them and the list was endless. There were rare and collectibles among them: Elvis, Johnny Mathis, Patsy Cline, and one by Little Richard. All were their best top hits. Ah... where are they now? In someone else's collection. We auctioned them all.  

[Henry_iain]

My parents are big music lovers and we still have quite a few old records and a record player. All it needs is a needle. 

[BeauJangles]

5 minutes ago, Henry_iain said:

My parents are big music lovers and we still have quite a few old records and a record player. All it needs is a needle. 

We just had an old phonograph player at that time. The stylus I believe was sapphire back then. Modern turntables are diamond, of course. Depending on the model, make, and year of the unit, it might be more economical to buy a new turntable. Stylus cartridges can sometimes cost hundreds. Hope you find a resolve. 

[other one]

there are laser turntables for vinal records that put no contact and no wear on the records.  i'm not sure if it creates a digital or analog replay though.

I have a couple of friends who have very good hearing and tell me they can tell the difference....    One of them has a turntable that he paid over a thousand dollars for that would not put a lot of wear on the records...    I think it could be used as a seismograph if it was set up right  LoL

[BeauJangles]

52 minutes ago, other one said:

there are laser turntables for vinal records that put no contact and no wear on the records.  i'm not sure if it creates a digital or analog replay though.

Years ago I had a pretty strong indication this would develop into the next wave for the media of vinyl if it were to remain. Back in the early 1980's my friend had a linear tracking turntable. It was able to play an LP holding the unit sideways or even upside down. The main feature of it was its capability to play warped records. Most turntables fail the test. This one passed with flying colors. A pretty cool thing to have. Tracking thrashed vinyl was the specialty of the day. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by BeauJangles

[other one]

no matter what you do though just playing a record lightly damages it...   and the more it's played the less true signals come off of it....   the more one plays a record the less responsive the high frequencies are....

With magnetic tape it's the low frequencies are affected.

Lucky for me when I was 14, i used my lawn mowing business to buy me a good 10 inch ampex real to real recorder....    and every time I purchased a new album the very first time it was played got recorded.....         Thus, I have every piece of music that I have bought on tape....   and about 12 years ago I bought a commercial quality recording program for my desk top computer and spent months transferring those tapes to digital MP3 files.   I did have to boost the base frequencies to get some of the 55 year old tapes back to their normal sound....   but with my 73 year old ear drums, it's not going to make that much difference.   I have bought some CD's in the last ten years, but very few for it seems to me that there isn't any decent music been recorded since the mid 1980's and the best from 1955 to 1980...    as of now i just checked and there is 2,027 songs about 15 gig all together.

Oddly enough though I do like Little Richards music, I never bought one of his records...

[BeauJangles]

Cool tech talk. Very interesting also. During my career as an analog audio/visual technician and multi-media specialist, I managed to get a good Yamaha stereo system for the department. Stack tower speakers, double cassette deck, and a great turntable component set up. Cost a thousand bucks. I took all the vinyl I had and duped them by remastering them all on Scotch 3M master studio cassettes. Still major and in popular demand for copying. CDs didn't have that capability yet, so that worked out well. They still have great spark to them and captured the rich warm vinyl sound. Very close to the pressings of the originals. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by BeauJangles

[Debp]

About Little Richard...

I remember that he became a preacher.   Sorry to hear he converted to Judaism later.

One time he went into the cafeteria where my mom was a cashier.   She said she thought he was on something....he was putting his leg up over the counter where she was sitting!   I think she said he had a bodyguard with him.

I didn't listen to him.   Only what I heard when one of his songs would be played on the TV.   Didn't listen to much radio.