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Artist News
Little Richard dies
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 11 May 2020
Little Richard died, aged 87, on Saturday morning. The cause of death was related to bone cancer, according to the New York Times.
Born Richard Wayne Penniman in 1932, he began performing music in his father’s church as a child. He then signed his first record deal with RCA in 1951 after winning a talent show in a local club. However, his career did not immediately take off – his relatively tame early singles not featuring the flamboyant, raucous style he became known for.
His first hit was ‘Tutti Fruiti’, released in 1955. The iconic, over the top chorus of “a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom” had come to him while working as a dishwasher in a restaurant. It went to number 21 in the US. Coming out two years later in the UK, it went to number 29.
More successful was his next (or previous in the UK) single ‘Long Tall Sally’, which went to number thirteen in the US and number three in the UK. However, it was ‘Tutti Fruiti’ that he would ultimately become best known for, and which cemented him as one of the most influential artists of the rock n roll era.
His career almost ended not long after that initial success. While travelling to Australia for a tour in 1957, the aeroplane he was travelling on experienced difficulties. He then saw a fireball in the sky while performing one night – later revealed to the be the Sputnik 1 satellite falling to earth – and he took these two events as a sign that he should quit music and become a minister, resulting on him returning home early. He later also admitted that he was having financial difficulties at the time, as a result of falling record sales and unfavourable deals.
While studying theology, he then recorded a gospel album, ‘God Is Real’, in 1959. However, in 1962, he was convinced to take part in a tour of Europe performing his old rock n roll material. By the mid-60s he had fully returned to his secular music career. At one time, while performing a run of shows in Hamburg, his opening act was The Beatles – the band later saying that this had been a hugely influential time for them.
Although he never again matched the chart success that he enjoyed in the 1950s, he nevertheless remained a popular and successful live performer, only retiring in 2013 at the age of 80.
