Founding Father: Little Richard

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

As frightening as Jerry Lee Lewis was to many American parents of the 1950s, Little Richard was even scarier. Not only did he pound the piano and howl with abandon like Lewis, he was black, and, uh, my God, Martha, he's wearing mascara!

Richard Penniman was born in 1932 to a family deeply involved in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, so the boy was weaned on gospel music. His siblings nicknamed him "War Hawk" because of his screechy singing voice. He derived his personal style from the major gospel stars of the '40s, both from how they sang and how they played piano. He got his first recording contract in 1951, but the handful of singles he made were unsuccessful. At some point during the early '50s, he adopted the stage name Little Richard, but it wasn't until he joined Specialty Records in 1955 that he scored a hit. On a break during a session at Cosimo Matassa's studio in New Orleans, he started fooling around with a song called Tutti Frutti. The original lyrics were cleaned up a bit -- "Tutti frutti, aw rooty" replaced "tutti frutti, loose booty," for example -- and the result was an early rock 'n' roll classic. Further classics followed: Lucille, Rip it Up, Long Tall Sally, Good Golly Miss Molly, Keep A-Knockin', and others. By 1956, Little Richard was in the movies, banging piano in Don't Knock the Rock and The Girl Can't Help It.

But at the peak of his fame in 1957, Little Richard gave it all up. In the middle of a tour, he quit the music business to go into the ministry and vanished from public view for several years, although Specialty found some tunes in the vaults to keep him on the radio for a while. In the early '60s, Little Richard reemerged, and on a 1962 tour of Britain inspired dozens of young musicians who would become stars themselves within a few years: all four Beatles, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, David Bowie, and others would all cite Little Richard as an influence. By the late '60s, Little Richard was considered an elder statesman of rock 'n' roll, and the world had finally caught up to his look: the tall pompadour hairstyle and makeup didn't seem quite as odd in the '70s as it had in the '50s.

In the late '70s, Little Richard gave up secular music for religion again, reemerging in 1986 with an acting role in the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills; a retro-sounding single from the movie, Great Gosh A-Mighty, made the Top 40. In the same year, he was part of the inaugural class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's been a media presence ever since, with cameo roles on TV and in the movies, commercials, and in music videos. He sang with Jerry Lee Lewis and John Fogerty at the Grammys last winter, and this past summer played a minister on The Young and the Restless.

When Rolling Stone compiled its list of rock immortals in 2004, Little Richard placed eighth, just behind Jimi Hendrix and James Brown and just ahead of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. Sounds about right.

Have something to add to the mix? Share your thoughts below or read through Founding Fathers past...