Born Richard Penniman in 1932 – "I have six brothers and five sisters, but I was the best looking one of all of them and I'm not conceited at all" – Richard said he grew up singing in his preacher grandfather's church. "I used to play Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally while he'd be preaching." In the 1950s, racial segregation in the US meant that there were limited opportunities for black performers. Richard found a secular safe place to develop his raw talent on the Chitlin' Circuit, a network of live venues established by black entertainers and entrepreneurs mainly in the Deep South. These were the venues where the sound of rock'n'roll was born.
Eager to escape his job as a dishwasher at the Greyhound bus station in Macon – "I had been washing plates for so long, I was tired" – he sent his demo tape to Los Angeles-based label Specialty Records. In archive featured in the 2023 BBC documentary, Arena: The King and Queen of Rock'n'Roll, label founder Art Rupe recalled: "We didn't listen to the tape right away. It was a scratchy tape and it was poorly recorded. He just kept calling us, so finally I said, 'Find that tape,' and we found it and we listened to it. If it hadn't been for Richard's persistence, we would have never met Little Richard."
Early recording sessions in New Orleans failed to capture the magic. Producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell said he didn't appreciate Richard until he saw him play at the city's famous Dew Drop Inn. He said: "That was when I begin to know and understand Richard, because all you've got to do is give Richard an audience, turn the lights on, and the show is on." Richard's bandmate and friend Ron Jones recalled in the Arena documentary: "He jumped on the piano and sang, 'Awop-bop-a loo bop alop-bam-boom!' So they heard it and said, 'Wait a minute, what's that?' It was a hook that they had never heard before, but Richard had been singing that phrase for years on the Chitlin' Circuit."
Richard's influence spanned generations and genres
But if Tutti Frutti was going to be a hit record, its risqué lyrics needed a major rewrite. Deacon John, former band leader at the Dew Drop Inn, told Arena: "The lyrics could be interpreted as gay sex. They're not going to play that on the radio!... And everybody knew, this ain't about ice cream! But the primary reaction from the producer's point of view was, 'Hey, this sounds like a hit record.'" Producer "Bumps" Blackwell said: "I asked him did he have a grudge against making money? He said, 'No.' I said, 'Good.' So we wrote the words,'Tutti frutti, oh rooty,' and a girl named Sue and a girl named Daisy, put Richard on the piano, and in 15 minutes I think we cut two or three cuts, and it's been history ever since."