LITTLE RICHARD THE Specialty YEARS

A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom!

- GILLIAN G. GAAR

It’s the rallying cry of rock and roll, a clarion call that Rolling Stone once referred to as “the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded.” As the opening salvo of the song “Tutti Frutti,” its impact was immediate, and would span continents; when John Lennon, then a 15-year-old growing up in Liverpool, first heard the record, “It was so great, I couldn’t speak.” Released in October 1955, it was an instant classic that would become one of the touchstones of rock and roll.

And for its singer and co-songwriter, Little Richard, it would be the career breakthrough he’d been waiting for, the first of a string of Top 10 pop and R&B hits he’d enjoy over the next three years. And while he would continue recording and performing long past the 1950s, it was Little Richard’s years with Specialty Records that marked the period of his greatest influence, his musical achievements making him one of the primary architects of rock and roll.

His beginnings were humble. Richard Wayne Penniman was born on December 5, 1932 in Macon, Georgia, one of 12 children. With a father who was a church deacon (who sold moonshine on the side), and a mother who was just as religiously inclined, it was natural for Richard to begin his performing career singing in church. His parents and siblings even performed together as the Penniman Singers. “I could always sing loud and I kept changing the key upward,” he told Charles White, author of