Artist of the Month

​    No one would be prepared for a man who started out in traveling medicine shows, drag-queen revues, churches and clubs. But in 1950’s America, this made for a terrible mess.
   He was black and gay, talented and loud, teens of both races loved him. As early as 1951 this artist cut his first recordings, but they all fell through. When he returned back home to Macon Georgia with his group the” Upsetters” he sent a demo tape to Specialty Records in Los Angeles.
   Later in the year he got invited to record some demos in New Orleans, many white kids had never heard heard of him,but when several white radio stations thought the time was right, they showed no hesitation in programming the song of “Tutti Frutti” from that point on there begin a trail of some of the classiest, black Rock’n’Roll records that America and the world would ever hear, even though sometimes he had to watch other performers
 steel his music, he calls himself the inventor of “Rock’n’Roll”.
   He was backed up buy some of the best studio musicians and soon had chart toppers like” Lond Tall Sally”,”Rip it up”, Slippin and Sliddin”,Lucille”,”The girl can’t help it”,”Jenny Jenny”,and”Good Golly Miss Molly. We
 all know him as “LITTLE RICHARD”.While on tour he met up with an up coming band from England who called themselves “The BEATLES”,at that time he was offered the opportunity to buy a 50% share of the group but didn’t take the offer.
   He moved in with a white family after being kicked out from his
 home with Ann and Johnny Johnson who ran Macon’s “Tick Tock Club,where Richard first performed. His style of whooping,shouting vocals,dumb lyrics,and wild piano banging
 set the style for his future hits.Out of Richard’s
 approximately 36 songs for Specialty Records seven were certified gold,”Tutti Frutti”,”Long Tall Sally”,”Rip it up”,”Jenny Jenny”,Keep a Knockin”, “Good Golly Miss Molly”and “Lucille”.
   To find out more about LITTLE RICHARD listen to KWMC’S 1490 AM Classic Hits “Little Red Rooster
 Show as we feature the originator of ROCK’N’ROLL himself “LITTLE RICHARD”.All information and known facts are by Wendy Johnson and all shows are produced by Javier Martinez.

---