Ow man l little richc, itits now 16 6 yes sincnce you hadd your f first hits. Oh, yes. Do youou realize t th well, you must r realize that at Yoyour Performrmances now there e are peoplele who wet even a alive when n you first t . Yes,s, but i i have woke e them up n. Everybybody that w wasnt alive whenen i starteded and was g , i Hahave Broughtht The Spiririt and d put it on n them. Werere you alwayays so . No, im m not. A lot ofof people say im m shy, bubut i let itit all hang g , everery bit. The lolove, ththe gentleneness, the tetenderness, the kindndness, yoyou aint susupposed toto hide themem. You got t it. God gagave it. Shshow it to t the world. Announuncer ladieies and gentn, if you wilill, a man whoos become a a leged in his ownwn time, Little Ricichard [ cheersrs and applalause ] gooood golly, m miss molly s sure like t to ball that m music, thatat beat, his voice. E. The oooh my gogod, who is s that . Who is t that . Cant heaear your mamama cal good gogolly, miss s molly id
In September 1955 Richard Wayne Penniman walked into a New Orleans recording studio and transformed popular music with a kinetic blast of pure gibberish: “A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, a-lop-bam-boom!”
Charles “Dr Rock” White, a longtime personal friend of the performer better known as Little Richard, remembers witnessing his explosive breakthrough hit, ‘Tutti Frutti’, performed live shortly before their first meeting, at the Granada theatre in Mansfield in 1962. “It was such an amazing experience,” says White, who in 1985 wrote the pop icon’s authorised biography,
The Life and Times of Little Richard.
Now in his late 70s, White occasionally struggles to remember details, but his recollection of that night in a Nottinghamshire market town 58 years ago is vivid. “The spotlight fell on the piano and suddenly Little Richard came running down the aisle all dressed in white,” he says. “He leapt into the orchestra pit, then on to the stage, and he started hitting the pia