Flamboyant ‘architect of rock ’n’ roll’
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Little Richard, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ’n’ roll” whose piercing wail, pounding piano and towering pompadour irrevocably altered popular music while introducing black R&B to white America, died Saturday after battling bone cancer. He was 87.
Bill Sobel, Little Richard’s attorney for more than three decades, said in an email that the musician died at a family home in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
“He was not only an iconic and legendary musician, but he was also a kind, empathetic, and insightful human being,” Sobel said.
Born Richard Penniman, Little Richard was one of rock ’n’ roll’s founding fathers who helped shatter the color 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 behavior and looks — mascara-lined eyes, pencil-thin mustache 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 the country. It was highlighted by Richard’s memorable call of “wop-bop-a-loo-bop-alop-bam-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 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.” Former bandmate John Lennon covered Richard’s “Rip It Up” and “Ready Teddy” on his 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.
“It is with a heavy heart that I ask for prayers for the family of my lifelong friend and fellow rocker Little Richard,” said Lewis, 84, in a statement provided by his publicist. “He will live on always in my heart with his amazing talent and his friendship! He was one of a kind and I will miss him dearly. God bless his family and fans.”
Mick Jagger called Little Richard “the biggest inspiration of my early teens” in a social media post Saturday.
Few were quicker to acknowledge Little Richard’s seminal role than Richard himself. The flamboyant singer claimed he paved the way for Elvis, provided Mick 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 Dec. 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, during the Great Depression, one of 12 children. He was ostracized 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 tug-of-war between his upbringing and rock ’n’ roll excess tormented Penniman throughout his career.
Penniman was performing with bands by the age of 14, but there were problems at home over his sexual orientation. His father beat the boy and derided him as “half a son.”
Richard left home to join a minstrel show, occasionally appearing in drag.
In late 1955, Little Richard recorded the bawdy “Tutti Frutti,” with lyrics that were sanitized by a New Orleans songwriter. It went on to sell 1 million records over the next year.
When Little Richard’s hit was banned by many white-owned radio stations, white performers like Pat Boone and Elvis Presley did cover versions that topped the charts.
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 mounted three tours of England between 1962 and 1964, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones serving as opening acts.
The Beatles paid homage by recording “Long Tall Sally” and Richard’s arrangement of “Kansas City,” but while they and their contemporaries used his model as a steppingstone to stardom, Richard recorded gospel and soul music and toiled as a touring rock ’n’ roll act through the ’60s.
In 1968, Richard hit Las Vegas and relaunched his career.
By the mid-1970s, Richard was battling a $1,000-a-day cocaine problem. He returned to religion, selling Bibles and renouncing homosexuality. For more than a decade, he vanished.
But he returned, in 1986, in spectacular fashion. Little Richard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and appeared in the movie “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.”
He was still performing occasionally as of 2009, having reconciled his sacred mission and secular passion, and promised to return to the stage following hip surgery late in the year.
“I believe there is good and bad in everything,” he said in the mid-’80s. “I believe some rock ’n’ roll music is really bad, but I believe that there is some not as bad. I believe that if the message is positive and elevating, and wholesome and uplifting, this makes you think clearly.”
Los Angeles Times contributed.