Legend who ignited rock ’n’ roll in 1950s
Stars hail great who helped them scale heights in music
Modern music’s biggest names have paid tribute to Little Richard, who has died after battling bone cancer. He was 87. Little Richard was one of the chief architects of rock ’n’ roll, whose piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour irrevocably altered popular music while introducing black R&B to white America.
Pastor Bill Minson, a close friend of the entertainer, said Little Richard died on Saturday. Little Richard’s son, Danny Jones Penniman, also confirmed the death.
Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Quincy Jones, Elton John, Ringo Starr, Cyndi Lauper and more music stars posted tributes to social media.
“I’m so saddened to hear about the passing of Little Richard, he was the biggest inspiration of my early teens and his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid-50s,” Jagger wrote.
“I just heard the news about Little Richard and I’m so grieved. He was my shining star and guiding light back when I was only a little boy. His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything I would do,” Dylan tweeted.
“It is with a heavy heart that I ask for prayers for the family of my lifelong friend and fellow Rocker ‘Little Richard’. He will live on always in my heart with his amazing talent and his friendship!” Jerry Lee Lewis said in an emailed statement.
Born Richard Penniman, Little Richard was one of rock ’n’ roll’s founding fathers who helped shatter the colour line on the music charts, joining Chuck Berry and Fats Domino in bringing what was once called “race music” into the mainstream. Richard’s hyperkinetic piano playing, coupled with his howling vocals and hairdo, made him an implausible sensation — a gay, black man celebrated across America during the buttoneddown Eisenhower era.
He sold more than 30 million records worldwide, and his influence on other musicians was equally staggering, from the Beatles and Otis Redding to Creedence Clearwater Revival and David Bowie.
In his personal life, he wavered between raunch and religion, alternately embracing the Good Book and outrageous behaviour and looks — mascara-lined eyes, pencil-thin moustache and glittery suits.
“Little Richard? That’s rock ’n’ roll,” Neil Young, who heard Richard’s riffs on the radio in Canada, told biographer Jimmy McDonough. “Little Richard was great on every record.”
It was 1956 when his classic Tutti Frutti landed like a hand grenade in the Top 40, exploding from radios and off turntables across America. It was highlighted by Richard’s memorable call of “wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lopbam-boom”.
A string of hits followed, providing the foundation of rock music: Lucille, Keep A Knockin’, Long Tall Sally, Good Golly Miss Molly ...
More than 40 years after the latter song charted, Bruce Springsteen was still performing Good Golly Miss Molly live.
The Beatles’ Paul McCartney imitated Richard’s signature yelps — perhaps most notably in the “Wooooo!” from the hit She Loves You. Ex-bandmate John Lennon covered Richard’s Rip It Up and Ready Teddy on the 1975 Rock and Roll album.
When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened in 1986, he was among the charter members, with Elvis Presley, Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sam Cooke and others.
So sad to hear that my old friend Little Richard has passed. There will never be another!!! He was the true spirit of Rock’n Roll!
— Keith Richards
RIP Little Richard, a very sad loss. My thoughts are with his loved ones.
— Jimmy Page
Dear Little Richard, thank you, RIP.
— Iggy Pop
He was there at the beginning and showed us all how to rock and roll. — Brian Wilson
God bless little Richard one of my all-time musical heroes. Peace and love to all his family.
— Ringo Starr
In his presence he was always the same Little Richard that I first heard and was awed by growing up. Of course he’ll live forever. But it’s like a part of your life is gone. — Bob Dylan
An innovator whose influence spans America’s musical diaspora from Gospel, the Blues & R&B, to Rock & Roll, & Hip-Hop, there will never, ever, ever, be another Little Richard . . . God Bless you Richard . . . May your soul Rest In Peace. — Quincy Jones
I’m so saddened to hear about the passing of Little Richard, he was the biggest inspiration of my early teens and his music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid 50’s.
— Mick Jagger
He was one of a kind and I will miss him dearly. God Bless his family and fans. Rest In Peace, my friend. Love Eternally.
— Jerry Lee Lewis
Without a doubt — musically, vocally and visually — he was my biggest influence. Seeing him live in my teens was the most exciting event in my life at that point.
— Elton John
Jagger credited Richard with helping him become the performer he became.
“When we were on tour with him, I would watch his moves every night and learn from him how to entertain and involve the audience and he was always so generous with advice to me,” Jagger said in his online tribute. “He contributed so much to popular music. I will miss you Richard, God bless.”
Few were quicker to acknowledge Richard’s seminal role than Richard himself. The flamboyant singer claimed he paved the way for Elvis, provided Jagger with his stage moves and conducted vocal lessons for McCartney.
“I am the architect of rock ’ n’ roll!” Little Richard crowed at the 1988 Grammy Awards as the crowd rose in a standing ovation. “I am the originator!”
Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, during the Great Depression, one of 12 children. He was ostracised because he was effeminate and suffered a small deformity: his right leg was shorter than his left.
The family was religious, and Richard sang in local churches with a group called the Tiny Tots. The tugof-war between his upbringing and rock ’n’ roll excess tormented him throughout his career.
He was performing with bands by the age of 14, but there were problems at home over his sexual orientation. His father beat him and derided him as “half a son”.
Richard left home to join a minstrel show run by a man known as Sugarloaf Sam, occasionally appearing in drag.
In late 1955, Richard recorded the bawdy Tutti Frutti, with lyrics that were sanitised by a New Orleans songwriter. It went on to sell a million records over the next year.
When his hit was banned by many white-owned radio stations, white performers such as Pat Boone and Elvis Presley did cover versions that topped the charts.
Richard went Hollywood with an appearance in Don’t Knock the Rock. But his wild lifestyle remained at odds with his faith, and a conflicted Richard quit the business in 1957 to enroll in a theological school and get married.
Richard remained on the charts when his label released previously recorded material. And he recorded a gospel record, returning to his roots.
A 1962 arrest for a sexual encounter with a man in a bus-station restroom led to his divorce and return to performing.
He toured England three times from 1962 to 1964, with the Beatles and Rolling Stones serving as opening acts.
Back in the States, he put together a band that included guitarist Jimi Hendrix — he later fired Hendrix when he was late for a bus.
In 1968, Richard hit Las Vegas and relaunched his career. Within two years, he had another hit single and made the cover of Rolling Stone.
By the mid-1970s, Richard was battling a US$1000-a-day cocaine problem and once again abandoned his musical career.
He returned to religion, selling
Bibles and renouncing homosexuality. For more than a decade, he vanished.
“If God can save an old homosexual like me, he can save anybody,” Richard said.
But he returned, in 1986, in spectacular fashion. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and appeared in the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
A Little Richard song from the soundtrack,
Great Gosh A’Mighty, even put him back on the charts for the first time in more than 15 years. Little Richard was back to stay, enjoying another dose of celebrity that he fully embraced.
Macon, Georgia, named a street after its favourite son. And Richard was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In August 2002, he announced his retirement from live performing. But he continued to appear frequently on television, including a humorous appearance on a 2006 commercial for GEICO insurance.
Richard had hip surgery in November 2009 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, and asked fans at the time to pray for him. He lived in the Nashville area at the time.