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| The legendary Little Richard passed away. |
Twitter is lit up about the passing of iconic musician Little Richard. He is the father of rock and roll.
Richard Wayne Penniman, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor. The founding father of Rock Music passed away from bone cancer. His son, Danny Jones Penniman confirmed to the junk food media that his father is rocking in Heaven.
Known for the fervent shriek, flamboyant garb and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied in the spirit and sound that was the new art form died on Saturday.
He was 87 year old.
Listen to the "Here's Little Richard" here.
Starting with "Tutti Frutti" in 1956, Little Richard had a legacy of music. He had some of the best hit you've may have heard. Songs like "Long Tall Sally," Rip It Up" and "Lucille" come to mind.
He also had that one boogie woogie single "Good Golly Miss Molly."
Driven to music and driven for success, Little Richard was one of the few Black entertainers to quickly crossover in an industry that saw White as the profitable money-maker.
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| Playing the piano with ease. |
Little Richard's stage persona -- his pompadours, androgynous makeup, and glass-bead shirts -- also set the standard for rock & roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizeable debt to the musician.
"Prince is the Little Richard of his generation," Little Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989, before looking at the camera and addressing Prince, "I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!"
Born in Macon, Georgia in 1932, Little Richard was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. "I was born in the slums. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey," he told the Rolling Stone in 1970.
They reported that he sang at a local church. His father Bud thought he was gay and rejecting him.Little Richard left the home and moved in with a white family in Macon. But growing up, he had the music in him and he met his boyhood friend, fellow singer, Otis Redding. The two would learn the art of music from listening to R&B, blues and country while working at a local concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium.
After performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Little Richard landed a music deal with RCA in 1951. He was known as Little Richard because he was a young talent in a grown ups industry.
During the time, Little Richard grew his career through tame and conventional singles he would cut for RCA Records.
He was never a fan of the music at first.
"When I started singing, I sang it a long time before I resented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn't like it. I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared."
During the downtime, he was doing odd jobs. He was washing dishes at a local restaurant inside a Greyhound bus station in Macon. He told the story of his father being murdered. He said that he had to move back with his mother to help her raise the younger children.
During this low point, he sent a tape with a rough version of a bawdy novelty song called "Tutti Frutti" to Specialty Records in Chicago. He came up with the song’s famed chorus — "a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom" — while bored washing dishes. (He also co-wrote "Long Tall Sally" while working that same job.)
By coincidence, label owner and producer Art Rupe was in search of a lead singer for some tracks he wanted to cut in New Orleans, and Penniman’s howling delivery fit the bill. In September 1955, the musician cut a lyrically cleaned-up version of "Tutti Frutti," which became his first hit, peaking at 17 on the pop chart. "'Tutti Frutti' really started the races being together," he told Rolling Stone in 1990.
"From the git-go, my music was accepted by whites."
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| The father of rock-and-roll. |
Many people assumed that Little Richard was gay. He would reject that claim. He never said he was homosexual. He said that he's ommisexual and didn't give care what you think.
His longtime friend and collaborator Jerry Lee Lewis said that he's a one-of-kind musician.
"It is with a heavy heart that I ask for prayers for the family of my lifelong friend and fellow rocker 'Little Richard,'" Lewis said in a statement. "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."
As with Presley, Lewis, and other contemporaries, Little Richard was cast in early rock & roll movies like Don't Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can't Help It (1957). In a sign of how segregated the music business and radio were at the time, though, Pat Boone's milquetoast covers of "Tutti Frutti" and “Long Tall Sally,” both also released in 1956, charted as well if not higher than Richard’s own versions. ("Boone's "Tutti Frutti" hit Number 12, surpassing Little Richard's by nine slots.) Little Richard later told Rolling Stone that he made sure to sing "Long Tall Sally" faster than "Tutti Frutti" so that Boone couldn't copy him as much.
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