Little Richard, rock ‘n’ roll icon and Georgia native, dies at 87
Richard Wayne “Little Richard” Penniman, the flamboyant Macon-born showman whose hymn-trained, “Tutti Frutti”-belting voice and whose brash, widely imitated style pioneered rock ’n’ roll, died Saturday in Nashville. He was 87.
From his trademark high-rise pompadour to his bedazzled outfits that were “wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom” fashion statements unto themselves, Little Richard and his music found their groove in 1950s America.
His first-of-its-kind act, with hits that stood the test of time like “Good Golly Miss Molly,” “Lucille” and “Long Tall Sally,” cemented him as an iconic entertainer who cleared paths for generations of performers.
His biography at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where in 1986 he was among the earliest inductees, affirms his boast as the genre’s architect, which he billed himself as for decades: “More than any other performer, save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, 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 ... defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.”
His style was so flashy that one of his costumes in the 1960s, a decade that saw home play several shows with the Beatles, featured a mirrored shirt. (In 1962, he was such a big name act that the Beatles opened for him. As did the Rolling Stones the next year.)
Little Richard, or simply Richard as he was often referred to by those who knew him, and even those who did not, will no doubt forever be an icon in his hometown.
Not unlike soul genius Otis Redding, who grew up and rose to fame here, Little Richard remains a household name. It is not uncommon for folks to claim some familial or at least ephemeral connection to Richard and take pride that tie however slight. He has been a star and, in his later years, a legend longer than all but the oldest of locals have been alive. His namesake Little Richard Penniman Boulevard, which runs east of Interstate 75 below Mercer University is part of new southerly gateway into downtown Macon, the city where he got his start.
The third of 12 children, he was born three years after the stock market crash on Dec. 5, 1932. By the time he was 12, Richard was a featured singer in local churches. He was raised in a small yellow house in the Pleasant Hill neighborhood west of downtown and just east of where I-75 runs today, honing his skills as a piano player. He told the Telegraph in 1987 that an entertainer named Esquerita taught him how to play.
By 1945, in his early teens, he led groups of spiritual singers under the direction of the Rev. C.H. Durham and others, who put on a show at Camp Wheeler. When he was 15, Richard was in a church group that called itself the Silver Gates Singers.
In January 1952, at age 19, according a write-up in The Telegraph at the time, Richard was already known locally for his “melodious voice.”
The next month, on Valentine’s Day, his father died. Charlie “Bud” Penniman was shot and killed in what newspaper accounts described as a “sort of duel” between Charlie Penniman and a man named Frank Tanner. Tanner was slightly wounded in the episode.
The shooting, later declared a justifiable homicide, happened at the Tip-In Inn on Woodliff Street, just south and east of where Walnut Street now crosses I-75. The Tip-In had been managed by Charlie Penniman, and the police said he and Tanner had shot at each other with pistols.
In 1953, a promoter of a Fifth Street nightclub helped him form the Tempo Troopers in Nashville. The group would perform throughout the South before Richard came back to Macon and created the group the Upsetters. A 1955 recording session in New Orleans at J&M Studios produced “Tutti Frutti” and jettisoned Little Richard into star status.
His music inspired and influenced generations of performers, including The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and pop superstar Prince. Even so, Gregg Allman, another famed musician with Macon ties, once said in an Esquire interview that Prince “sure ain’t no Little Richard.”
Richard stayed true to his Macon roots. Though he moved away to homes in Nashville and California, in his old age he spoke dearly of his birthplace. He had once worked as a car hop at the Pig and Whistle drive-in restaurant in Macon.
His song “Southern Child,” recorded in 1972, harkens to his days here: “Well I’m a Southern child, Southern child, down in Macon, Georgia; Everybody knows where I was born; I been seeking, searching, Lordy, Lord, trying to find my way, tryin’ to find my way back home.”
In an interview with The Telegraph around the time of his 80th birthday in December 2012, Richard said that though he had spent much of his life on the West Coast “you still can’t beat your home. You still love your home better than anywhere you’ve ever been.”
In that interview, he seemed surprised he had lived so long.
“Nobody in my family lived to get this age,” he said. “None of the men.” As a child, he worked for a time selling Cokes at the City Auditorium in Macon.
In October of 1947, he scored a gig singing at a show put on by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. He was 14. Within a decade afterward, in the middle 1950s, he had a home in Los Angeles and was living next door to boxer Joe Louis.
Telegraph senior editor Caleb Slinkard contributed to this story.
This story was originally published May 9, 2020 at 9:58 AM with the headline "Little Richard, rock ‘n’ roll icon and Georgia native, dies at 87."
