SONG FACTS
“Tutti Frutti” 
- Little Richard
Album: “Here's Little Richard”
Released 1955
Little Richard was born Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Georgia. He was one of twelve children; “Little Richard” was his childhood nickname, and even though he was not a little adult (almost 6 feet tall), he kept the name. His family listened to singers like Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald. Richard couldn't find any music he liked, so he created it.
In 1957, he left the music business to pursue a life as a minister. As a child, he wanted to be part of the church, so as an adult he enrolled in Oakwood Theological College in Huntsville, Alabama. During his studies there, the British Invasion took over the musical landscape and Little Richard returned to rock 'n roll. In 1970, he earned a BA in Theological Studies at Oakwood and became an ordained minister in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Little Richard has appeared as himself or as fictional characters in various films, including The Last Action Hero, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Naked Truth and The Trumpet of the Swan. He's also appeared in various television shows, including The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Las Vegas.
On his Definition of Soul album, Little Richard performed duets with Jon Bon Jovi, Hank Williams Jr., Elton John, Solomon Burke and Tanya Tucker.
In 1986, he was one of 10 performers inducted into the first class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Regarding his sexuality, Little Richard told his biographer Charles White:
“We are all both male and female. Sex to me is like a smorgasbord. Whatever I feel like, I go for. What kind of sexual am I? I am omnisexual.” He was married to a woman from 1959-1961. He never fathered a child but did adopt a son named Danny Jones.
Mick Jagger famously said about Little Richard:
“I had heard so much about the audience reaction that I thought there must be some exaggeration. But it was all true. He drove the whole house into a complete frenzy. There's no single phrase to describe his hold on the audience. I couldn't believe the power of Little Richard on stage. He was amazing. Chuck Berry is my favorite, along with Bo (Diddley), but nobody could beat Little Richard's stage act. Little Richard is the originator and my first idol.”
Richard would take off various items of clothing and give them to the crowd at shows. Some people would get shoes or shirts, and a few lucky ones went home with mink coats.
Richard became wheelchair-bound and in constant pain after a botched hip replacement operation in November 2009. He planed to tour after the surgery, but was not physically able to go on the road and play. He died of bone cancer on May 9, 2020.
Little Richard grew up in a time and place - the American South - that could be very difficult for a black man. He never sang about racism, however, and downplayed his numerous encounters with racism, preferring to focus on the positive things that bring us together. Richard said on the subject:
“We are all God's bouquet, we all need each other the same as the birds need air.” He's also maintained that homosexuals are equal in the eyes of God, stating: “God don't just have Heaven for the straight man. Heaven is for all of us if we do his will.”
Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Billy Preston were all backing musicians for Little Richard early in their careers. When Richard couldn't make some 1955 shows because of a scheduling conflict, James Brown did the shows for him, impersonating Richard. Brown and Richard had the same manager at the time - Clint Brantley - who hatched the plan.
Richard says he started wearing make-up to make himself less threatening when he played for white audiences. He felt he could avert a lot of trouble if it looked like he had no interest in the white women screaming for him. His focus was on the music and entertaining, and the make-up helped facilitate that.
He would pound the hell out of the pianos he played. Richard's producer Bumps Blackwell said that he saw him break piano strings on multiple occasions by hitting the keys so hard.
In Bob Dylan's high school yearbook, his ambition was “to join Little Richard”. Dylan, at the time known as Robert Zimmerman, graduated from Hibbing High School in Minnesota.
An ordained minister, Richard officiated weddings for Stevie Van Zandt (1982), Demi Moore and Bruce Willis (1987), Cyndi Lauper (1991) and Tom Petty (2001). He also showed up on the soap operas One Life To Live and The Young and The Restless to preside over weddings.
Little Richard wrote “Tutti Frutti” in 1955 when he was working as a dishwasher at a Greyhound bus station in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. Explaining how he came up with the song, he told Rolling Stone:
“I couldn't talk back to my boss man. He would bring all these pots back for me to wash, and one day I said, 'I've got to do something to stop this man bringing back all these pots to me to wash', and I said, 'Awap bop a lup bop a wop bam boom, take 'em out!' and that's what I meant at the time. And so
I wrote ‘Tutti Frutti’ in the kitchen,
I wrote ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ in the kitchen,
I wrote ‘Long Tall Sally’ in that kitchen.”
Richard says that “Awap bop a lup bop a wop bam boom” was kind of his catch phrase, something he would reply to folks who asked him how he was doing.
Long before Richard recorded this, he performed it at his shows as “Tutti Frutti, Good Booty”. It was a very raucous and sexual song and was considered too suggestive for white audiences, so it was cleaned up considerably when he recorded it for Specialty Records. The chorus was changed to “Tutti Frutti, aw Rudi”, and these original lyrics were replaced:
“If it's tight, it's alright”
“If it's greasy, it makes it easy”
Some sources have claimed that Richard also sang “A good God damn” instead of “a wop bam boom”, but according to the notes in the 2012 reissue of the album, Richard (who later became a minister) never took the Lord's name in vain and never sang that lyric.
This was Little Richard's first hit, but his success was far from instant. His first recordings were in 1952 for RCA Records, and were failures. He moved to Peacock Records the next year and released some singles with the Johnny Otis Trio backing him up. His break came when the singer Lloyd Price played a show in Macon, Georgia, and Richard, who was selling drinks at the gig, went to the dressing room and played Price “Tutti Frutti” on the piano.
Price encouraged Richard to send a tape to Specialty Records, so he sent them a demo of two songs he recorded in February 1955 with his group The Upsetters:
“Baby” and
“All Night Long” . Specialty owner Art Rupe was unimpressed, but Richard kept calling and sending letters.
His persistence paid off and Rupe finally sent his producer Bumps Blackwell to New Orleans, where on September 13 and 14, they recorded the nine songs that would comprise the Here's Little Richard album. “Tutti Frutti” was released as a single and became a breakout hit, which Richard found out when the record company called him in Georgia to explain. They flew him to Hollywood and had him record follow-up singles “Long Tall Sally” and “Slippin' and Slidin”.”
This was the last song recorded for the album, and it barely made it. The first eight tracks Richard put down were blues numbers which weren't wowing his producer Bumps Blackwell, who took a break and brought Richard to a local bar called the Dew Drop Inn. Richard, feeling more relaxed with an audience to play for, sat down at a piano in the bar and started playing his live favorite “Tutti Frutti” . This got Blackwell's attention, and he insisted that Richard record the song.
Of course, the original racy lyrics about “good booty” had to be replaced, and Little Richard had no particular talent for writing words that would match his melody yet mollify a white audience. This task fell to Dorothy LaBostrie, who Blackwell described as
“a girl who kept hanging around the studio to sell songs”. She was on hand because Richard recorded her song “I'm Just A Lonely Guy” earlier that day. With time running out in the session, an embarrassed Richard sang her the raunchy lyrics, looking at the wall while he did so. LaBostrie left and came back with the sanitized lyrics with just 15 minutes of studio time remaining. They quickly recorded the song, getting it right on the third take with two minutes to spare. Dorothy LaBostrie earned what became a very lucrative writing credit for her efforts.
This song introduced Little Richard's famous “Whooooo”, and also a big “Aaaaaaahhh” scream which he sings just before the tenor sax solo performed by Lee Allen. Richard's scream had a practical purpose: to let Allen know when to start playing. They were recording on just three tracks, so overdubbing the horns wasn't a practical option.
You can also hear Richard's classic line in this song, “A wop bop a lu bop, a wop bam boom!” He felt you could express your emotions without singing actual words. He would also put a little something extra into the words he sang, which he called “that thing”. It was something he learned playing piano and singing in church, and it was a style that would influence the next generation of rock music.
This is one of the most famous songs of all time, making #43 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs, but it was not a huge hit, going to #2 on the R&B charts and reaching just #17 on the Hot 100.
Pat Boone fared better with his 1956 cover , taking it to #12. Boone had a long career doing sanitized covers of songs by black artists, and he also covered Richard's “Long Tall Sally” . Many listeners at the time only knew the song through Boone, so Little Richard's promotional materials often labeled him “Original ‘Tutti Frutti’ Man”.
Boone changed some of the lyrics, so “Boy you don't know what she's doing to me” became “Pretty little Susie is the girl for me”.
“The kids didn't care - they didn't know”, he said in a Songfacts interview. Boone went on to explain that Little Richard was grateful for the exposure, as he introduced the song to a white audience.
Like “Long Tall Sally” , this song was covered by Elvis. Little Richard once said:
“Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.”
Little Richard did not invent the name “Tutti Frutti”; it was a popular flavor of ice cream. The phrase is Italian for “All Fruits”, and the ice cream had little bits of candied fruit mixed in. In 1938, the Jazz duo Slim Gaillard and Slam Stewart, who recorded as Slim And Slam, released a popular song called “Tutti Frutti” , which was about the ice cream. Little Richard's was a completely different song.
Little Richard recorded this at J&M Studios in New Orleans, which was the only place to record in the city for many years. Opened in the late '40s, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded there as well. It has since become a laundromat.
Huey “Piano” Smith played the piano on the first eight songs during the session that produced this album, but he didn't have time to learn “Tutti Frutti” ; so Richard played it himself. The drummer on the session was Earl Palmer, who later moved to Los Angeles and became one of the most prolific drummers of all time, playing on songs by the Righteous Brothers, Elvis Costello, B.B. King and hundreds of others. On this song, Palmer had no rehearsal and Richard was pounding out a rock rhythm on the piano.
Palmer later explained:
“The only reason I started playing what they come to call a Rock and Roll beat was came from trying to match Richard's right hand - with Richard pounding the piano wih all ten fingers, you couldn't so very well go against that. I did at first - on 'Tutti Frutti you can hear me playing a shuffle. Listening to it now, it's easy to hear I should have been playing that rock beat.”
(From Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story.)
This song was a huge influence on many aspiring rock stars, but it had special significance for David Bowie, as it was the first rock song he heard. Bowie's father, who ran a London music hall, brought the record home when David was 9 years old.
“My heart nearly burst with excitement”, said Bowie. “I had heard God.”
Little Richard told Mojo in 1999:
“My greatest achievement would have to be 'Tutti Frutti.' It took me out of the kitchen - I was a dishwasher at the Greyhound bus station, making $10 a week working 12 hours a day, and 'Tutti Frutti' was a blessin' and a lesson. I thank God for 'Tutti Frutti'.”
Little Richard official site / Rock & Roll Hall of Fame / Billboard / All Music / Song Facts / Little Richard
Image: “Here's Little Richard (album)” by Little Richard
