A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom!

With those lyrics, American rockstar Little Richard’s hit “Tutti Frutti” kicks off with a memorable bang. Many remember this as his greatest song and will continue to do so after his recent death on Saturday, May 9. Little Richard died of bone cancer at 87 in Tullahoma, Tennessee. 

Born in 1932 as Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Georgia, Little Richard went on to define the early rock and roll era of the 1950s. As a child, he went to church for the black gospel music. His father, Charles “Bud” Penniman, ordered him out of his family home at the age of 13 because of his sexual orientation. A white family soon took him in, and he eventually began performing at the club they owned in Macon. 

In 1955, Richard started working with Specialty records producer Art Rupe, and he soon recorded “Tutti Frutti,” which hit No. 21 on the Billboard pop chart and, in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked at #43 on its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” Over the next few years, he produced more rock hits like “Long Tall Sally” (ranked #55 on the Rolling Stone list), “Good Golly Miss Molly” (ranked #93), and “The Girl Can’t Help It” (ranked #413), influencing The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and helping establish rock as a musical form. 

While Little Richard was not a civil rights activist, he suffered from racism, violence, prejudice, and discrimination. According to Upper School history teacher Andrew Bigelow, his music brought together white and black audiences, and he was one of the first musicians to which both communities listened. 

“I would give credit to the folks who chose to mix together and go to an integrated concert, which were the first where we saw blacks and whites together,” Bigelow said. “That took a lot of courage and was very new and very risky.”

Senior Jared Saef, a fan of Little Richard’s and member of Grape Jam, agrees.“He played for a number of integrated audiences, and his music reached much of the white audience compared to other black artists,” Saef said. “Though he wasn’t active in the civil rights movement, his music transcended racial barriers.”

Sixth-grade English teacher George Drury first became aware of Little Richard when he was around 11 years old and found a magazine on the street with a “Where Is He Now” article about the artist. From then on, Drury followed Little Richard’s career and saw him live in Rochester, New York, in the 70s, at a show with Chuck Berry. “He arrived in his mirrored vest, ran his fingers over the keys, paused for a second, then tore into the first song,” Drury said. “It’s not easy to be charming and electrifying at the same time, but Little Richard did not disappoint. He was both.”

Music teacher Alec Synakowski fondly remembers hearing “Tutti Frutti” as a kid and believes the song’s appeal is a musical testament to the fact that lyrics do not need to be understood to be effective. “The fast tempo, aggressive singing, over the up-beat rhythm could get anyone dancing,” Synakowski said. “That song is influential to me because the lyrics are practically meaningless, and yet, listeners do not seem to mind.”

Saef first became a fan of Little Richard in 2015, when his circus group performed to “Tutti Frutti.” According to Saef, his teammates and the audience were much more lively and enthusiastic when the song started playing. “His music is the type that gets people moving,” Saef said. “The lively sounds of his voice, along with the hopping tone of the background music, makes me feel alive.”

To Saef, Little Richard was not only a foundation block of rock and roll but also an historically significant figure from a gender and sexuality standpoint. “He broke the bounds of toxic masculinity and gender norms and of what a male performer should be,” Saef said. “That was incredibly influential, especially for his time, and we can use him as a model for expressing oneself.”

To Drury, Little Richard was fun and versatile, and he was “all in” whether he was singing “Lucille,” “Rock Island Line,” or “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” “He was a prodigiously talented artist and performer who knew how to show dullness the door,” Drury said. “ He was a joyous disrupter and the results were thrilling.”

According to a Rolling Stone article published in 1990, Little Richard “blew the lid off the Fifties. With his mascara-smeared face twisted in a midstream paroxysm of rapture and dementia, hair piled high in a proud pompadour, he was an explosive and charismatic performer who laid the foundation of rock and roll.”

When critics asked him, Little Richard said he was the inventor of rock and roll. “If there was somebody else, I didn’t know them, didn’t hear them, haven’t heard them,” Little Richard said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1990. “I’m the architect.”

Saef believes that black musical artists do not get enough credit for their influence on music, especially since musicians like Mick Jagger and The Beatles have credited blues music and artists for inspiration. “We see that black creators are literally erased from textbooks, and Little Richard is just another example of that,” Saef said. “There are rock and roll enthusiasts who have no idea that people like Little Richard created the building blocks for the genre, which is an issue we need to address to teach in schools and put in textbooks.”

According to Bigelow and Parker parent emeritus Brian Lighty, other musicians’ songs, like American singers Sam Cooke, Mahalia Jackson, and Bob Dylan, contributed more to the civil rights movement. 

“Sam Cooke was doing what Little Richard should have done but didn’t,” Lighty said. “He was a great pianist and more flamboyant than anything else, and when The Beatles opened for him, that’s when you saw more black and white people come together.”

Bigelow agrees. “He wasn’t openly gay but definitely had a lot of inner demons, growing up to be black and gay and from the South,” Bigelow said. “He was not someone who walked along Dr. King and Rosa Parks, but he created this concert space where everyone came, and his music was uplifting and fun to watch and watch.”

To Saef, honoring Little Richard means shedding light on black artists and giving them more credit for inspiring the success of primment white musicians “We can learn not to confine ourselves, to go out there and be yourself 100 percent of the time, and not set limitations on yourself,” Saef said. “Little Richard embodies that notion.”

Drury believes that Little Richard’s courage and inventiveness put rock and roll on the map. “He understood spectacle, and his playfully boasting persona always included an appealing dash of modesty,” Drury said. “If you like rock and roll and/or enjoy a society more disposed to art, fun and free expression than the perennial bringdowns, you owe Little Richard your gratitude.”

According to Synakowski, musicians and performers can learn two primary things from Little Richard. The first is the integral part musical and art play in questioning, challenging, and revising social norms. The second is the power of conviction and performing music with abandon, energy, and unshakeable intent. “When I think of performers like Little Richard and the artists he influenced, I think of musicians who command attention by playing, singing, and dancing with such energy and contagious emotion, that it engages very deep, almost instinctual parts of the listener’s humanity,” Synakowski said. “To see someone sincerely pouring their heart into a performance is one of the most fantastic expressions of this art form, and it is how I remember Little Richard.”

Bigelow believes that people will remember Little Richard for his opulent lifestyle, flamboyance, charisma, and style. “He was definitely a cultural icon and very loud and fun and wild,” Bigelow said. “He created songs that were really easy to sing along to and he moved away from the traditional standard reform.”

Saef agrees and emphasises the importance of music on black culture. “Black people were so restricted in society and they expressed their freedom through their art, music, and dancing,” Saef said. “During slavery, music was an escape to freedom and where they felt liberated, and music as an escape has been passed down from generations.”

Little Richard embodied this positive effect of music. “Black culture uses songs to express yourself and enliven your soul,” Saef said, “and that’s what Little Richard did in his music.”