Saturday Morning Soul: December 2008

Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), better known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter and pianist, who also became a born again Christian and evangelist.

A key figure in the transition from rhythm & blues to rock & roll, Penniman blew the lid off the 1950s, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly” defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll. and influenced generations of rhythm & blues, rock and soul music artists. In addition, his original injection of funk during this period, via his saxophone-studded mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, also influenced the development of that genre of rock music. Little Richard was subsequently honored by being one of seven of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and was one of only four of these honorees (along with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Fats Domino) to also receive the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award.

Little Richard's early work was a mix of boogie-woogie, rhythm & blues and gospel music, but with a heavily accentuated back-beat, funky saxophone grooves and raspy shouted vocals, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections that marked a new kind of music. In 1957, while at the height of stardom, he became a born again Christian, enrolled in and attended Bible college, and withdrew from recording and performing secular music. Claiming he was called to be an evangelist, he has since devoted large segments of his life to this calling, though he has returned to recording secular music on numerous occasions over the years.

Little Richard has earned wide praise from many other performers. James Brown called Little Richard his idol and credited him with "first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat." Dick Clark described his music as "the model for almost every rock and roll performer of the '50s and years thereafter. Ray Charles asserted that Little Richard was "the man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today. In his high school year book, Bob Dylan declared that his ambition was "to join the band of Little Richard.", In 1966, Jimi Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." In addition to James Brown, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding,Wilson Pickett, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Bob Seger, David Bowie, and numerous other rock & roll icons have also cited Little Richard as being a first major influence on their music. He was chosen as the eighth greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, although at least six of the seven artists who preceeded him on the list were influenced by Little Richard's music. (wikipedia)