Little Richard – Artist of The Month December 2022
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Described as the Architect of Rock and Roll, Richard’s most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll.
Richard’s innovative emotive vocalizations and up-tempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. Tutti Frutti , one of Richard’s signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
Penniman was the third of twelve children of Leva Mae and Charles Bud Penniman. His mother was a member of Macon’s New Hope Baptist Church. Initially, his first name was supposed to have been Ricardo, but an error resulted in Richard instead. The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill.
In childhood, he was nicknamed Lil’ Richard by his family because of his small and skinny frame. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music. He later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because there was so much poverty, so much prejudice in those days. May, a singing evangelist who was known as the Thunderbolt of the Middle West because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Richard to become a preacher.
Richard’s high-energy antics included lifting his leg while playing the piano, climbing on top of his piano, running on and off the stage and throwing his souvenirs to the audience. He also began using capes and suits studded with multi-colored stones and sequins. Richard said he began to be more flamboyant onstage so no one would think he was after the white girls.
Richard claims that a show at Baltimore’s Royal Theatre in June 1956 led to women throwing their undergarments onstage at him, resulting in other female fans repeating the action, saying it was the first time that had happened to any artist. Richard’s show would stop several times that night due to fans being restrained from jumping off the balcony and then rushing to the stage to touch him. Overall, Richard would produce seven singles in the United States alone in 1956, with five of them also charting in the UK, including Slippin’ and Slidin’, Rip It Up, Ready Teddy, The Girl Can’t Help It and Lucille.
Immediately after releasing Tutti Frutti, which was then protocol for the industry, safer white recording artists such as Pat Boone covered the song, sending the song to the top twenty of the charts, several positions higher than Richard’s. His fellow rock and roll peers Elvis Presley and Bill Haley also recorded his songs later that same year.
Befriending Alan Freed, the disc jockey eventually put him in his rock and roll movies such as Don’t Knock the Rock and Mister Rock and Roll. Richard was given a larger singing role in the film, The Girl Can’t Help It. That year, he scored more hit success with songs such as Jenny, Jenny and Keep A-Knockin’ the latter becoming his first top ten single on the Billboard Top 100. By the time he left Specialty in 1959, Richard had scored a total of nine top 40 pop singles and seventeen top 40 R&B singles.
Taken by his music and style, and personally covering four of Richard’s songs on his own two breakthrough albums in 1956, Elvis Presley told Richard in 1969 that his music was an inspiration to him and that he was the greatest. Richard was honored by many institutions.
In 1962, after a five-year period during which Richard abandoned rock and roll music for born again Christianity, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded him to tour Europe. During this time, the Beatles opened for Richard on some tour dates. Richard advised the Beatles on how to perform his songs and taught the band’s member Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations. Richard is cited as one of the first crossover black artists, reaching audiences of all races.
In the fall of 1963, Richard was called by a concert promoter to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Richard agreed and helped to save the tour from flopping. At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled The Little Richard Spectacular.
In December 1964, Richard brought Hendrix and childhood friend and piano teacher Eskew Reeder to a New York studio to re-record an album’s worth of his greatest hits. He went on tour with his new group of Upsetters, to promote the album.
1975 was a big year for Richard, with a world tour, and acclaim over high energy performances throughout England and France. His band was perhaps his best, to date. He cut a top 40 single (US and Canada), with Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Take It Like a Man. He worked on new songs with sideman, Seabrun “Candy” Hunter. He told Dee-Jay, Wolfman Jack, that he planned on releasing a new album with Sly Stone, but it never materialized.
In 1976, he decided to retire again, physically and mentally exhausted, having experienced family tragedy and the drug culture. He was talked into once again recutting his greatest hits, for Stan Shulman in Nashville. This time, they would not use new arrangements but original arrangements. Richard re-recorded eighteen of his classic rock and roll hits, for K-Tel Records, in high tech stereo recreations, with a single featuring the new versions of “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Rip It Up” reaching the UK singles chart. Richard later admitted that he was heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. By 1977, worn out from years of drug abuse and wild partying as well as a string of personal tragedies, Richard quit rock and roll again and returned to evangelism, releasing one gospel album, God’s Beautiful City, in 1979.
In October 1985, having finished his album Lifetime Friend, Richard returned from England to film a guest spot on the show Miami Vice. Following the taping, he accidentally crashed his sports car into a telephone pole in West Hollywood, California. He suffered a broken right leg, broken ribs and head and facial injuries. His recovery from the accident took several months, preventing him from attending the inaugural Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in January 1986 where he was one of several inductees. He instead supplied a recorded message.
In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres and helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concert in the mid-1950s changing American culture significantly.
On May 9, 2020, after a two month illness, Richard died at the age of 87 at his home in Tullahoma, Tennessee, from a cause related to bone cancer. His brother, sister, and son were with him at the time. Richard received tributes from many popular musicians, including Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Elton John, and Lenny Kravitz, as well as many others, such as film director John Waters, who were influenced by Richard’s music and persona. He is interred at Oakwood University Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama.
To celebrate his extraordinary life, Presley Collectibles are offering a 10% discount on all our Little Richard hand signed memorabilia throughout December 2022. Simply use the code P334RQPP when you checkout. T&Cs apply.