![]() ![]() “Shining like a quasar, the most intensely radiant object in the cosmos, he seems to tap a mystical source of mental power that is only accessible to great preachers and shamans,” McCartney wrote in the preface to the 1994 biography “The Life and Times of Little Richard.”īut Richard’s career took a turn in 1957 when he decided to abandon rock in the middle of a two-week tour of Australia. ![]() Richard first recorded in the early 1950s and became a dominating force on the music charts starting in 1956 with hits such as “Tutti Frutti,” “Rip It Up,” “Slippin’ and Slidin’, and “Good Golly Miss Molly.” All were infused with the frantic rhythm of a runaway train. He first went on the road in the late 1940s, performing in medicine shows and drag shows and with bands. ![]() A singer named Esquerita also influenced Richard’s fashion and manic musical style. His first performances were as a child in his church choir and his earliest inspirations were gospel singers, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who let a young Richard open her show when she stopped in Macon. His faith was so deeply ingrained that at times it would overwhelm his rock career. Religion was a guiding force in his family, which attended Pentecostal, Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal churches. 5, 1932 as Richard Penniman to a poor family of 12 children in Macon, Georgia. ![]() “Elvis may have been the king of rock ‘n ‘roll but I am the queen,” he proclaimed. He wore brightly colored suits, a pencil-thin mustache, a carefully curled 6-inch pompadour, mascara, pancake makeup and lipstick. Little Richard’s sonic extravagance was matched by his campy flamboyance. “I am the innovator,” Richard would tell interviewers and audiences. Jimi Hendrix, who played in Richard’s band in the mid-1960s, said he wanted to use his guitar the way Richard used his voice. Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, James Brown, Otis Redding, David Bowie and Rod Stewart all cited Little Richard as an influence. “Although I was black, the fans didn’t care. “I’ve always thought that rock ‘n’ roll brought the races together,” Richard once told an interviewer. Many white artists, such as Pat Boone, had their own hit versions of Richard’s songs, albeit considerably toned down and “safer” for the pop audience. The music drew in both young black and white fans at a time when parts of the United States still were strictly segregated. but whose beat seemed to hint of unearthly pleasures centered somewhere between the gut and the gutter.” Time magazine said he played “songs that sounded like nonsense. Richard’s bass guitarist, Charles Glenn, told celebrity website TMZ the musician had been sick for two months and that he died surrounded by his brother, sister and son.Īt his peak in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, Richard shouted, moaned, screamed and trilled hits like “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille,” all the while pounding the piano like a mad man and punctuating lyrics with an occasional shrill “whoooo!” He was loved by his family and adored by millions,” his family said in a statement through their lawyer, Bill Sobel. “Little Richard died in Tullahoma, Tennessee of bone cancer. Richard, a Grammy Award winner and inductee to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame whose electrifying 1950s hits such as “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally” and flamboyant stage presence influenced legions of performers, succumbed to cancer. Little Richard, the self-proclaimed “architect of rock ‘n’ roll” who built his ground-breaking sound with a boiling blend of boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues and gospel, died on Saturday at the age of 87. ![]()
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