17 Little Richard “Tutti Frutti”

Little Richard is known as the architect of Rock and Roll, and aside from folks like Louis Armstrong who set the basic format for popular song structure, it’s an apt title. 

Little Richard’s life is wild and filled with a lot of angst. I’m certainly not going to label his sexuality if he doesn’t, but I will say that he viewed himself as a sinner for it. Several times in his career, he abandoned rock and roll for being “Devil’s music” before coming back to it again. I can’t imagine living with that much inner turmoil. Someone should write a book comparing Little Richard’s views of himself with St. Augustine’s views of himself in his Confessions. Someone else should do it, not me.

The big start of Little Richards rise in rock and roll is with “Tutti Frutti.” The story about the recording of this song shares similar elements to the story of Elvis Presley’s first recording session. The session is going no where, with everyone being too timid and too uptight to produce anything worthwhile. As soon as a break happens that allows people to play around a bit and relax, something magical happens that needs to be recorded. We’ll look at Elvis’s specific story later, but Richard’s goes like this:

The band takes a break and a few of the folks involved with the session go to a local pub to get some lunch. At the pub, there is a piano sitting in the corner, and Richard cannot help himself but sits down and starts to just wail on the thing, belting out the lyrics to a song he had wrote and been playing in some night clubs for a bit. “Tutti-Frutti – good booty; if it’s tight – it’s alright; if its greasy – makes it easy” was the raucous and racy sort of song that works in a bar full of rowdy drunks. But those lyrics! 

The folks from the recording session, probably engineers and the producer Robert Blackwell, that were at the bar knew this was the style and energy they were missing and that they wanted to capture. But those lyrics!!

There was an aspiring songwriter who helped out at the studio, Dorthy LaBostrie, who they called in to help rewrite the lyrics. But first, they needed Richard to play the song for her so she knew the phrasing that she need to rewrite. Richard refused to play the song for her because, you know, those lyrics!!!

Eventually, he agreed but only if he played it facing the wall with his back to her to limit his embarrassment. And so, the new lyrics “Tutti-Frutti – aw rooty” came to be. 

“Tutti Frutti” was also one of the earliest and most egregious examples of a white artist recording a black artist’s song and having the bigger hit with it at the same time. Pat Boone’s version of “Tutti-Frutti” was a bigger hit, but wow, do you not want to listen to it. Just soulless. I do remember hearing an interview with Richard about this, where he talked about how, yeah, it stunk, but what often happened was the kids would buy both versions and either hide his version in the Pat Boone sleeve, or keep the Pat Boone one out and hide his in their sock drawers. He said something akin to, “I may not have been out, but I was in the house.”

You know this song. But have you ever really sat and listened to it? Now’s your chance.