Little Richard

Little Richard recorded "Tutti Frutti" at J&M Studios in New Orleans on September 14, 1955, and in doing so helped invent rock and roll. His instrument was the piano, and he played it like a weapon. Richard's technique — hammering the keys with his full body weight, standing up from the bench to generate more force, pounding boogie-woogie left-hand patterns while his right hand played gospel-inflected runs at impossible speed — turned a Steinway grand piano into a percussion instrument as much as a melodic one. At J&M Studios, producer Bumps Blackwell captured Richard's Steinway Model D through a single overhead microphone, with the piano's lid removed so the hammers' mechanical attack was as audible as the notes. The resulting recordings — "Tutti Frutti," "Long Tall Sally," "Good Golly Miss Molly" — had a rhythmic violence that no one in popular music had achieved before. On tour, Richard played whatever was available: Baldwin grand pianos, Steinways, uprights that could barely survive a show. He preferred Baldwin concert grands for their brighter, more cutting tone, which projected over the screaming audiences better than the warmer Steinway voicing. His vocal microphone — typically a Shure 55S or similar unidirectional dynamic — was the other essential element, capturing the most powerful voice in 1950s rock at close range. Richard's influence on piano-driven rock was total and immediate: Jerry Lee Lewis openly studied and copied his stage technique, Elton John built an entire career on the foundation Richard laid, and every rock pianist who has ever stood up from the bench is performing a gesture that Little Richard invented.