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Andy Sullivan: Against the Grain

Music executive Art Rupe, who founded Specialty Records, has died at 104.  His artists included John Lee Hooker and Lloyd Price.  Rupe helped launch the careers of Little Richard and Sam Cooke.  Rupe, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, died on Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, California, according to the Arthur N Rupe Foundation.  The foundation did not release a cause of death. 

The Greensburg, Pennsylvania native was a contemporary of Jerry Wexler, Leonard Chess and other white businessmen-producers who helped bring black music to a general audience.  He founded Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 and gave early breaks to such artists as Cooke and his gospel group the Soul Stirrers, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, John Lee Hooker and Clifton Chenier. Specialty Records’ growth paralleled, and perhaps defined, the evolution of black popular music, from the “race” music of the 1940’s to the rock & roll of the ‘50’s”, music historian Billy Vera wrote in the liner notes to The Specialty Story, a 5-cd set that came out in 1994. 

Rupe’s most lucrative and momentous signing was Little Richard, a R&B and Gospel performer since his teens who had struggled to break through commercially.  In a 2011 interview for the hall of fame archives, Rupe explained that Little Richard(the professional name for the late Macon, Georgia native Richard Penniman) had learned of Specialty through Price, sent a demo and for months called trying to find out if anyone had listened.  He finally demanded to speak to Rupe, who dug his tape from the reject pile.  “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 BB King”.

Initial recordings were uninspiring.  But during a lunchbreak, Little Richard sat down at a nearby piano and pounded out a song he’d performed at club dates: Tutti Frutti, with its immortal opening “Awopbopaloomopawopbamboom!”

One of Rock & Roll’s first major hits, it was released September ’55, “Tutti Frutti” was a manic but cleaner version of the raunchy original.  Richard’s other hits with Specialty included “Long Tall Sally”, “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Rip It Up” before he abruptly (and temporarily) retired in 1957.   Rupe was known for how little he paid artists.  He engaged in exploitative practices common among label owners: having performers sign contracts leaving him much or all royalties and publishing rights.  He grew 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 1990’s, 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”. 

He was born Arthur Goldberg, a Jewish factory worker’s son whose passion for black music began through hearing the singers at a nearby Baptist church.  (www.theguardian.com

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