Art Rupe, pioneering record executive, dead at 104

NEW YORK ( AP) — Music executive Art Rupe, whose Specialty Records was a premier label during the formative years of rock ‘n roll and helped launch the careers of Little Richard, Sam Cooke and many others, has died. He was 104.

Rupe, who was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2011, died Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, California, according to the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The foundation did not release his cause of death.

The Greensburg, Pennsylvania, native was a contemporary of Jerry Wexler, Leonard Chess and other white businessmen-producers who helped bring Black music to a general audience. He founded Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 and gave early breaks to such artists as Cooke and his gospel group the Soul Stirrers, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, John Lee Hooker and Clifton Chenier.

“Specialty Records’ growth paralleled, and perhaps defined, the evolution of Black popular music, from the ‘ race’ music of the 1940s to the rock n’ roll of the 1950s,” music historian Billy Vera wrote in the liner notes to “The Specialty Story,” a five- CD set that came out in 1994.

Rupe’s most lucrative and momentous signing was Little Richard, a rhythm ‘ n blues and gospel performer since his teens who had struggled to break through commercially. In a 2011 interview for the Rock Hall archives, Rupe explained that Little Richard (the professional name for the late Macon, Georgia, native Richard Penniman) had learned of Specialty through Price, sent a demo and for months called trying to find out if anyone had listened. He finally demanded to speak to Rupe, who dug out his tape from the reject pile.