Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.
Compatible Stereo and Quadraphonic 1974 Album by Jimi Hendrix with Little Richard from 1964-5 recordings–on Everest "Archive of Folk & Jazz Music".
Little Richard was not the only original rock & roller to attempt a comeback in the late '60s and early '70s, but he may have been the one to take the greatest musical risks. Fats Domino merely updated his sound (albeit in a charming fashion), Jerry Lee Lewis refashioned himself as a hardcore country singer, and Chuck Berry pandered with "My Ding-A-Ling," but Little Richard pushed himself on his three albums for Reprise, all of which were collected – along with his contributions to Quincy Jones' 1972 Dollar$ soundtrack album, non-LP singles, session outtakes, and a complete unreleased album from 1972 called Southern Child – in 2005 by Rhino Handmade for the triple-disc set The King of Rock and Roll.
For the first time on one 2CD set both sides of all Little Richard's important single releases recorded between 1956 and 1957. Includes several of Rock & Roll's most iconic recordings and undeniable classics such as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally", "Lucille" and many more. This is the perfect presentation for one of Rock & Roll's greatest artists and his greatest hits. With detailed sleeve notes incorporating.
Little Richard had been making records for four years before he rolled into Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans and cut the epochal "Tutti Frutti" in the fall of 1955, but everything else he'd done – and much of what others had recorded – faded into insignificance when Richard wailed "A wop bop a loo mop a lomp bomp bomp" and kicked off one of the first great wailers in rock history. In retrospect, Little Richard's style doesn't seem so strikingly innovative as captured in 1956's Here's Little Richard – his boogie-woogie piano stylings weren't all that different from what Fats Domino had been laying down since 1949, and his band pumped out the New Orleans backbeat that would define the Crescent City's R&B for the next two decades, albeit with precision and plenty of groove.