Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), better known as Little Richard, was an American singer, songwriter, and musician.

An influential figure in popular music, Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his dynamic music and charismatic showmanship laid the foundation for rock and roll, leading him to be given the nickname "The Innovator, The Originator, and The Architect of Rock and Roll". Characterized by his frenetic piano playing and raspy singing voice, Richard's 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, and his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come.

"Tutti Frutti" (1955), one of Richard's signature songs, became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and overseas in the United Kingdom. It reached No. 21 on the U.S. Billboard Top 100 and No. 29 on the UK singles chart. Richard's next hit single, "Long Tall Sally" (1956), hit No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and No. 13 on the Billboard Top 100 while reaching the top ten in the UK. Following his success, Richard built up his backup band, The Upsetters, with the addition of saxophonists Clifford "Gene" Burks and leader Grady Gaines, bassist Olsie "Baysee" Robinson and guitarist Nathaniel "Buster" Douglas. Richard's critically acclaimed debut album Here's Little Richard (1957) peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Top LPs chart.

In 1962, concert promoter Don Arden persuaded Little Richard to tour Europe after telling him his records were still selling well there even though they were not in the United States. Having heard of Richard's European tour, Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, asked Arden to allow the band to open for Richard on some tour dates, to which he agreed. The first show for which the Beatles opened was at New Brighton's Tower Ballroom that October. During this time, Richard advised the group on how to perform his songs and taught Paul McCartney his distinctive vocalizations. In the fall of 1963, Richard agreed to rescue a sagging tour featuring The Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley and The Rolling Stones. At the end of that tour, Richard was given his own television special for Granada Television titled The Little Richard Spectacular.

Richard was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 2015, Richard received a Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music for his key role in the formation of popular music genres and helping to bring an end to the racial divide on the music charts and in concert in the mid-1950s changing American culture significantly. "Tutti Frutti" was included in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2010, which stated that his "unique vocalizing over the irresistible beat announced a new era in music".

Early life

Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Georgia, on December 5, 1932,[2] the third of 12 children of Leva Mae (née Stewart) and Charles "Bud" Penniman. His father was a church deacon and a brick mason, who sold bootlegged moonshine on the side and owned a nightclub called the Tip In Inn. His mother was a member of Macon's New Hope Baptist Church. Initially, his first name was supposed to have been "Ricardo", but an error resulted in "Richard" instead. The Penniman children were raised in a neighborhood of Macon called Pleasant Hill. In childhood, he was nicknamed "Lil' Richard" by his family because of his small and skinny frame. A mischievous child who played pranks on neighbors, Penniman began singing in church at a young age. Possibly as a result of complications at birth, he had a slight deformity that left one of his legs shorter than the other. This produced an unusual gait, and he was mocked for his allegedly effeminate appearance.

Penniman's family was very religious and joined various A.M.E., Baptist, and Pentecostal churches, with some family members becoming ministers. He enjoyed the Pentecostal churches the most, because of their charismatic worship and live music. He later recalled that people in his neighborhood sang gospel songs throughout the day during segregation to keep a positive outlook, because "there was so much poverty, so much prejudice in those days". He had observed that people sang "to feel their connection with God" and to wash their trials and burdens away. Gifted with a loud singing voice, Penniman recalled that he was "always changing the key upwards" and that they once stopped him from singing in church for "screaming and hollering" so loud, earning him the nickname "War Hawk". As a child, he would "beat on the steps of the house, and on tin cans and pots and pans, or whatever" while singing, which annoyed neighbors.

Penniman's initial musical influences were gospel performers such as Brother Joe May, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and Marion Williams. May, a singing evangelist who was known as "the Thunderbolt of the Middle West" because of his phenomenal range and vocal power, inspired Penniman to become a preacher. Penniman attended Macon's Hudson High School, where he was a below-average student. He eventually learned to play alto saxophone, joining his school's marching band while in fifth grade. While in high school, he got a part-time job at Macon City Auditorium for local secular and gospel concert promoter Clint Brantley. He sold Coca-Cola to crowds during concerts of star performers of the day such as Cab Calloway, Lucky Millinder, and his favorite singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Around 1956, Penniman became involved with Audrey Robinson, a 16-year-old college student, originally from Savannah, Georgia. Penniman and Robinson quickly got acquainted despite Robinson not being a fan of rock and roll music. Penniman claimed in his 1984 autobiography that he invited other men to have sexual encounters with her in groups and claimed to have once invited Buddy Holly to have sex with her; Robinson denied those claims. Penniman proposed marriage to Robinson shortly before he converted but Robinson refused. Robinson later became known under the name Lee Angel and became a stripper and socialite. Penniman reconnected with Robinson in the 1960s, though she left him again after his drug abuse worsened. Robinson was interviewed for Penniman's 1985 BBC documentary on the South Bank Show and denied Penniman's claims as they went back and forth. According to Robinson, Penniman would use her to buy food in white-only fast food stores as he could not enter any due to the color of his skin.

Penniman met his only wife, Ernestine Harvin, at an evangelical rally in October 1957. They began dating that year and wed on July 12, 1959, in California. According to Harvin, she and Little Richard initially enjoyed a happy marriage with "normal" sexual relations. Harvin claimed when the marriage ended in divorce in 1964, it was due to her husband's celebrity status, noting that it had made life difficult for her. Penniman would claim the marriage fell apart due to his being a neglectful husband and his sexuality. Both Robinson and Harvin denied Penniman's claims that he was gay and Penniman believed they did not know it because he was "such a pumper in those days". During the marriage, Penniman and Harvin adopted a one-year-old boy, Danny Jones, from a late church associate. Little Richard and his son remained close, with Jones often acting as one of his bodyguards. Ernestine later married Mcdonald Campbell in Santa Barbara, California, on March 23, 1975.

Penniman said in 1984 that he played with just girls as a child and was subjected to homosexual jokes and ridicule because of his manner of walk and talk. His father brutally punished him whenever he caught him wearing his mother's makeup and clothing. The singer said he had been sexually involved with both sexes as a teenager. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home at 15. In 1985, on The South Bank Show, Penniman explained, "my daddy put me out of the house. He said he wanted seven boys, and I had spoiled it, because I was gay."

Penniman first got involved in voyeurism in his early twenties, when a female friend would drive him around and pick up men who would allow him to watch them have sex in the backseat of cars. Penniman's activity caught the attention of Macon police in 1955 and he was arrested after a gas station attendant reported sexual activity in a car Penniman was occupying with a heterosexual couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.

In the early 1950s, Penniman became acquainted with openly gay musician Billy Wright, who helped in establishing Penniman's look, advising him to use pancake makeup on his face and wear his hair in a long-haired pompadour style similar to his. As Penniman got used to the makeup, he ordered his band, the Upsetters, to wear the makeup too, to gain entry into predominantly white venues during performances, later stating, "I wore the make-up so that white men wouldn't think I was after the white girls. It made things easier for me, plus it was colorful too." In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine, "I figure if being called a sissy would make me famous, let them say what they want to." Penniman's look, however, still attracted female audiences, who would send him naked photos and their phone numbers. Groupies began throwing undergarments at Penniman during performances.

During Penniman's heyday, his obsession with voyeurism carried on with his girlfriend Audrey Robinson. Penniman later wrote that Robinson would have sex with men while she sexually stimulated Penniman. Despite saying he was "born again" after leaving rock and roll for the church in 1957, Penniman left Oakwood College after exposing himself to a male student. After the incident was reported to the student's father, Penniman withdrew from the college. In 1962, Penniman was arrested for spying on men urinating in toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. Audrey Robinson disputed Penniman's claims of homosexuality in 1985. After re-embracing rock and roll in the mid-1960s, he began participating in orgies and continued to be a voyeur. In his 1984 book, while demeaning homosexuality as "unnatural" and "contagious", he told Charles White he was "omnisexual". In 1995, Little Richard told Penthouse that he always knew he was gay, saying "I've been gay all my life". 

In 2007, Mojo Magazine referred to Little Richard as "bisexual". 

In October 2017, Penniman once again denounced homosexuality in an interview with Three Angels Broadcasting Network, calling homosexual and transgender identity "unnatural affection" that goes against "the way God wants you to live".

During his initial heyday in the 1950s rock and roll scene, Penniman was a teetotaler abstaining from alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Penniman often fined bandmates for drug and alcohol use during this era. By the mid-1960s, however, Penniman began drinking heavy amounts of alcohol and smoking cigarettes and marijuana. By 1972, he had developed an addiction to cocaine. He later lamented during that period, "They should have called me Lil Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of that stuff!" By 1975, he had developed addictions to both heroin and PCP, otherwise known as "angel dust". His drug and alcohol use began to affect his professional career and personal life. "I lost my reasoning", he later recalled.

He said of his cocaine addiction that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Penniman admitted that his addictions to cocaine, PCP and heroin were costing him as much as $1,000 a day. In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill him for failing to pay his drug debt. Penniman later mentioned that this was the most fearful moment of his life because Williams's own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable. Penniman did, however, also acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends" and when reminiscing of the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking "I knew he loved me – I hoped he did!" Within that same year, Penniman had several devastating personal experiences, including his brother Tony's death of a heart attack, the accidental shooting of his nephew that he loved like a son, and the murder of two close personal friends – one a valet at "the heroin man's house."[146] The combination of these experiences convinced the singer to give up drugs including alcohol, along with rock and roll, and return to the ministry.

Little Richard's death on May 9, 2020, was announced by his son, Danny Penniman, who said his death was related to bone cancer.

Although Penniman never won a competitive Grammy Award, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993. His album Here's Little Richard and three of his songs ("Tutti Frutti," "Lucille" and "Long Tall Sally") are inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Penniman has received the various awards for his key role in the formation of popular music genres.

• 1956: He received the Cashbox Triple Crown Award for "Long Tall Sally" in 1956.
• 1984: He was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
• 1986: He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the initial class of inductees chosen for that honor.
• 1990: He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 1994: He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation.
• 1997: He received the American Music Award of Merit.
• 2002: Along with Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, he was honored as one of the first group of BMI icons at the 50th Annual BMI Pop Awards.
• 2002: He was inducted into the NAACP Image Award Hall of Fame.
• 2003: He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
• 2006: He was inducted into the Apollo Theater Hall of Fame.
• 2008: He received a star on Nashville's Music City Walk of Fame.
• 2009: He was inducted to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
• 2010: He received a plaque on the theater's Walk of Fame.
• 2015: He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
• 2015: He was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame.
• 2015: He received the Rhapsody & Rhythm Award from the National Museum of African American Music.
• 2019: He received the Distinguished Artist Award at the 2019 Tennessee Governor's Arts Awards.

Discography

Studio albums

• Here's Little Richard (1957)
• Little Richard (1958)
• The Fabulous Little Richard (1958)
• Pray Along with Little Richard (1960)
• Pray Along with Little Richard (Vol 2) (1960)
• The King of the Gospel Singers (1962)
• Little Richard Is Back (And There's A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!) (1964)
• Little Richard's Greatest Hits (1965)
• The Incredible Little Richard Sings His Greatest Hits - Live! (1967)
• The Wild and Frantic Little Richard (1967)
• The Explosive Little Richard (1967)
• Little Richard's Greatest Hits: Recorded Live! (1967)
• The Rill Thing (1970)
• Mr. Big (1971)
• The King of Rock and Roll (1971)
• Friends from the Beginning – Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix (1972)
• Southern Child (1972) unreleased
• Second Coming (1972)
• Right Now! (1974)
• Talkin' 'bout Soul (1974)
• Little Richard Live (1976) all studio
• Going All The Way With Little Richard (live) (1979)
• God's Beautiful City (1979)
• Lifetime Friend (1986)
• Shake It All About (1992)
• Little Richard Meets Masayoshi Takanaka (1992)

Filmography

• The Girl Can't Help It (1956), lip-syncing the title number (different version from record), "Ready Teddy" and "She's Got It"
• Don't Knock the Rock (1956), lip-syncing "Long Tall Sally" and "Tutti Frutti"
• Mister Rock and Roll (1957), lip-syncing "Lucille" and "Keep A-Knockin'", on original prints
• Catalina Caper (aka Never Steal Anything Wet, 1967), Richard lip-syncs an original tune, "Scuba Party", still unreleased on record by 2019.
• Little Richard: Live at the Toronto Peace Festival (1969) – released on DVD in 2009 by Shout! Factory
• The London Rock & Roll Show (1973), performing "Lucille", "Rip It Up", "Good Golly Miss Molly", "Tutti Frutti", "I Believe" [a capella, a few lines], and "Jenny Jenny"
• Jimi Hendrix (1973)
• Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), co-starred as Orvis Goodnight and performed the production number, "Great Gosh A-Mighty"
• Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll TV Documentary (1987)
• Goddess of Love Made For TV Movie (1988)
• Purple People Eater (1988)
• Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989) (uncredited)
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1990) (voice)
• Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme (1990)
• Columbo - S10E3 "Columbo and the Murder of a Rock Star" (1991) (Cameo)
• The Naked Truth (1992)
• Sunset Heat (aka Midnight Heat) (1992)
• James Brown: The Man, The Message, The Music TV Documentary (1992)
• "Martin" as the exterminator (1992)
• The Pickle (1993)
• Last Action Hero (1993)
• Full House (1994) (Cameo) - Episode: Too Little Richard Too Late
• Baywatch (1995) as Maurice in Episode: The Runaways
• The Drew Carey Show (1997) (cameo) - Episode: Drewstock
• Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998)
• Mystery Alaska (1999)
• The Trumpet of the Swan (2001) (voice)
• The Simpsons (2002) (voice)

Let the Good Times Roll (1973) featured performances and behind-the-scenes candid footage of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Bill Haley, the Five Satins, the Shirelles, Chubby Checker, and Danny and the Juniors.