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Without Little Richard, rock music would not be what it is today. After speculating about his health for some time, the flamboyant artist died at the age of 87.
Rock and roll pioneer Little Richard is dead. The American musician (“Tutti Frutti”) died Saturday at the age of 87, according to “Rolling Stone” magazine and the American news agency AP. AP appealed to Pastor Bill Minson, a close friend of the deceased. The “Rolling Stone” quoted her son, Danny Penniman.
Stars like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Tina Turner, Prince, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Elton John, Bob Dylan and Freddie Mercury and Bruno Mars cited Little Richard as their musical idol.
His health after a hip operation caused speculation.
The cause of death for Little Richard, whose real name was Richard Wayne Penniman, was initially unclear. Little Richard’s health had been speculated for years after hip surgery.
Concerned, he lived in seclusion in the American state of Tennessee. Little Richard went from being an unknown musician to a superstar with his legendary song “Tutti Frutti” in 1955 and laid the foundation for rock and roll. The song had ushered in “a new era of music,” says the National Library of the United States.
Makeup, toupee, wild and openly bisexual costumes
After “Tutti Frutti”, he released songs like “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille” in the following years, which were covered and developed by stars like Elvis Presley. The openly bisexual “God of Rock’n’Roll” toured the United States and threw wild parties with men, women, and alcohol.
Her concerts, in which Little Richard performed with a thin mustache, high hair, makeup and wild costumes, brought together whites and blacks in the midst of the period of so-called racial segregation, to the horror of racists.
Penniman was born in 1932 to a poor African-American family in the southern US state of Georgia. His father was a smuggler and was killed when Little Richard, the third child among twelve brothers, was 19 years old.
After his greatest successes in 1957, he surprisingly decided to temporarily abandon music and become a priest. Since then, Little Richard has lived between church and music.
