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WireImage for NARAS
![Little Richard's cause of death is still unclear.]()
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Little Richard’s cause of death is still unclear.
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keystone-sda.ch
![The musician was 87 years old.]()
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The musician was 87 years old.
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Getty Images
![According to a friend, the last two months should have been sick.]()
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According to a friend, the last two months should have been sick.
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imago images / UPI Photo
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His biggest hits include “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally”.
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Rock’n’Roll legend Little Richard († 87) is dead. This was confirmed by his son Danny Penniman in the “Rolling Stone.” The cause of death is unclear.
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Little Glenn’s former bass player Charles Glenn told the US portal “TMZ”: “Richard had been sick for two months. He died in his home in Tennessee. » His brother, sister and son were with him. Charles Glenn wanted to visit him last March, but the corona virus had thwarted his plans.
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Lived retired
Little Richard invented rock’n’roll and laid the foundations for funk and soul. Most recently, however, the musician was in poor health and lived in seclusion in the US state of Tennessee. The church played the main role in his life, as he said in an interview. «God was good to me. I go to church every Saturday, every Saturday, I never miss that. And on Fridays I open the Sabbath day. »
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Richard Wayne Penniman was born in 1932 in extremely poor conditions to an African-American family in the southern US state of Georgia – right in the middle of the brutal separation of white and black people.
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Raised in poor conditions
“I come from the slums – you will never forget that,” said the musician, who was very small as a child and therefore called “Little Richard”. His father was a smuggler and was murdered when Little Richard – the third child among twelve siblings – was 19 years old. “Everything in me collapsed then.” But the experience also gave him strength, “and the conviction and persistence to know that one day I would make it.”
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Back then, black people in Georgia only lived in the unbearably noisy areas right next to the train tracks, as the multiple award-winning artist recalled. «The trains shook their houses at night. As a child, I heard that and thought: ‘At some point I’ll make a song that sounds exactly like it.’ ”
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Little Richard struggles with odd jobs, starts with gospel, sings from performance to performance and finally gets his first record deal. In addition to “Tutti Frutti”, he published songs like “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille” in the years that followed, which were covered and developed by stars like Elvis Presley (42) – rock’n’roll was born.
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Wild party life
Little Richard has been swimming on the wave of success for almost three years, touring the United States and openly celebrating wild bisexual parties with men, women and alcohol. His concerts, in which the musician, often celebrated as the “god of rock’n’roll”, with a thin mustache, high-topped hair, bright make-up, false eyelashes and wild costumes, brought together whites and blacks in the midst of racial segregation – to radical horror- conservative politicians and associations.
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But then suddenly it’s over. On a concert tour to Australia in 1957, Little Richard spontaneously decided to give up the music and become a priest. Since then, the shrill artist has lived between two worlds – the church and music.
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Several comeback exchanges
He starts comeback attempts again and again, fights against the ebbing interest in rock’n’roll, helps young Jimi Hendrix (27) to start his career, tours Europe with the then largely unknown Rolling Stones, tries his hand as an actor and publishes the foundation stone Funk and soul albums. But he always retreats to his religious world and the gospel.
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Stars from Elvis Presley via Otis Redding (26), Jerry Lee Lewis (84), Tina Turner (80), Prince (57), Mick Jagger (76), Rod Stewart (75), David Bowie (69), Elton John ( 73), Paul McCartney (77), Bob Dylan (78) and Freddie Mercury (45) up to Bruno Mars (34) cite Little Richard as their musical idol. But after the foundation stone was laid for rock’n’roll, others came to the fore. None of Little Richard’s songs could follow on from the world success of “Tutti Frutti” – but maybe it wasn’t necessary. “I always thought,” Bob Dylan once wrote, “that ‘A wop bop a loo lop a lop bam boo’ said it all.” (SDA / bnr)
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