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 Little Richard caricature 2012 infographic
Caricature shows Little Richard.
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MUSIC

Little Richard caricature 2012

By Chris Dinsdale

December 5, 2012 - U.S. singer-songwriter Little Richard turns 80. He played a key role in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the mid-1950s with his thumping piano playing and raspy, screeched vocals on such classics as Tutti Frutti and Good Golly, Miss Molly, which inspired many of the greatest recording artists of the 20th century and beyond.

With his flamboyant style -- hair coiffed up high from the forehead, pancake make-up and mascaraed eyes -- and energetic delivery -- thumping the piano and punctuating his raunchy lyrics with screeches and yells -- Little Richard, born Richard Wayne Penniman in America's deep southern state of Georgia in 1932, appeared on the radar of western popular culture in 1955 with all the impact of a musical meteorite. In an intense two-year period, he put out all the singles for which he remains best remembered, heavily influencing -- among many others to come -- a young Liverpudlian called Paul McCartney. Then, at the height of his fame and on the Australian leg of a world tour, the singer who had electrified audiences with his "a-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!", quit.

Raised in a deeply religious community -- his grandfather and two uncles were ministers and Richard learned to play the piano at church and sang in choirs there in his youth -- the 24-year-old, who started out singing gospel and blues before transforming them into something altogether new and funkier, became very suddenly convinced that his high-octane lifestyle -- the Cadillacs, the girls, the playing to packed and frenzied houses, to say nothing of his homosexual leanings -- were all out of sync with what God had ordained for his life. Penniman, who was by now being spoken of in the same breath as Elvis, Fats Domino and Ray Charles, whose best friend was James Brown and whose band had included the yet-to-solo Jimi Hendrix, gave it all up to go to Bible College.

By the time he returned to the music scene in the early 1960s, he had married and divorced Ernestine Campbell, a woman he met in Washington DC while touring the country with his Little Richard Evangelistic Team. In a pattern that was to repeat itself several times in succeeding decades, Penniman felt the pull of rock 'n' roll and, having recorded exclusively gospel songs for five years, returned to the industry that had made classics of his earlier hits: Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, Lucille and Good Golly, Miss Molly among them. He teamed up with the still-obscure Beatles in Hamburg in 1962, sharing with them his vocal techniques, notably the "woo holler" which McCartney was to employ to great effect shortly thereafter. The Fab Four opened for Little Richard in that autumn's tour of Germany and the UK.

He continued to record albums throughout the 60s and 70s, but the battle between his secular lifestyle -- including significant drug use -- and his spiritual convictions brought about another crisis in 1977, in which he once again renounced the pop world and returned to evangelism, stating that he could not serve two masters. With age, Penniman's views have mellowed. He moved into television and film work and, having found himself revered by a subsequent generation of artists -- from the Rolling Stones and Freddie Mercury to Michael Jackson and Bruno Mars -- now occupies a unique place as the musical granddaddy of them all.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 30/11/2012; STORY: Susan Shepherd; PICTURES: Bob Hoare
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