Music executive Art Rupe, whose Specialty Records was a premier label during the formative years of rock ‘n roll and helped launch the careers of Little Richard, Sam Cooke and many others, has died at 104.
“There was something in Little Richard’s voice I liked,” Rupe said. “I don’t know — it was so exaggerated, so over emotional. And I said, ‘Let’s give this guy a chance and maybe we can get him to sing like B.B. King.’”
Released in September 1955 and one of rock n’ roll’s first major hits, “Tutti Frutti” was a manic, but cleaner version of the raunchy original, which featured such rhymes as “Tutti Frutti/good booty.” Rupe noted that Little Richard’s performance was transformed when he accompanied himself on piano. Little Richard’s other hits with Specialty included such rock classics as “Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Rip it Up” before he abruptly retired in 1957. Specialty also was home to Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” ; Don and Dewey’s “Farmer John”; Larry Williams’ “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” which the Beatles later covered; and music by such leading gospel acts as Dorothy Love Coates, the Swan Silvertones and the Pilgrim Travelers.
Around the same time, Rupe grew increasingly frustrated with the “payola” system of bribing broadcasters to get records played and distanced himself from the music business. He sold Specialty to Fantasy Records in the early 1990s, but continued to earn money through oil and gas investments. In recent years, he headed the Art N. Rupe Foundation, which supported education and research to shine “the light of truth on critical and controversial issues.
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