Art Rup, the record holder who signed Little Richard and Sam Cook, has died aged 104.

Music executive Art Rup, whose Specialty Records was in the formative years of rock ‘n’ roll and helped Little Richard, Sam Cook and countless others launch their careers, has died. He was 104 years old.

arthur n According to the Rupee Foundation, Rupee, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, died Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, California. The foundation did not reveal his cause of death.

A Pennsylvania native, Greensburg was a contemporary of Jerry Wexler, Leonard Chase and other white business producers who helped bring black music to a wider audience. He founded Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 and pioneered artists such as Cook and his gospel group Soul Stirrers, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, John Lee Hooker and Clifton Chenier.

“The rise of Specialty Records coincided with, and perhaps determined, the evolution of black popular music from the ‘racial’ music of the 1940s to the rock ‘n’ roll of the 1950s,” writes music historian Billy Vera Liner. specialty historyFive CD sets released in 1994.

Rupee’s most lucrative and important hire was Little Richard, a teenage rhythm-blues and gospel singer trying to make his way commercially. In a 2011 interview with Rock Hall Archives, Rup explained that Little Richard (deceased in Macon, Georgia, native name of Richard Peniman) heard about the specialty through Price, submitted a demo version, and called for months to find out if anyone was there. . Ear. Finally, he demanded to speak to Rupee, who had taken his tape out of the trash.

“I liked something about Little Richard’s voice,” Rup said. “I don’t know, it was excessive, very emotional. And I said, ‘Let’s give this guy a chance and maybe give him a chance to sing like BB King.’

The early recording sessions were uninspiring, but over lunch at a nearby hotel, Little Richard sat at the piano and sang a song he played during club dates: “Tutti Frutti”, screaming his immortal overture: “A- wop -“. Bop-a-lu-mop-a-wop-bam-boom!”

Released in September 1955 and one of rock ‘n’ roll’s first great hits, “Tutti Frutti” was a manic but cleaner version of the heartwarming original with hits like “Tutti Frutti/Good Booty.” Rup noted that Little Richard’s performance was transformed when he was accompanied on the piano.

“Up until now, Bumps (producer Robert ‘Bomps’ Blackwell) Little Richard was just a vocalist,” said Rup. “The neck bone that connects to the knee bone or something; Her voice and her way of playing made her stronger.”

Critic Langdon Winner compares Little Richard’s records to Elvis Presley’s Sun Records sessions as “model songs and songs that have inspired rock musicians ever since”.

Little Richard’s other hits in the specialty included rock classics like “Long Tall Sally”, “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Rip it Up” until he abruptly (and temporarily) retired in 1957. The specialty was also “Lawdy Price’s”. Miss Clawdy. (On piano with Fats Domino); Don and Dewey “Farmer Johnny”; Larry Williams’ “Dizziness Miss Lizzie”, which was later picked up by the Beatles; and leading gospel songs like Dorothy Love Coates, Swan Swirls and Pilgrim Travelers.

Rupee was known for the little he paid his artists, and he engaged in an exploitative practice that was prevalent among record label owners in the early rock era: artists signing contracts, leaving him with royalties and royalties. Little Richard sued him in 1959 for royalties, suing him for $11,000.

Around the same time, Rupee grew increasingly frustrated with the broadcasters’ bribery system and walked away from the music business. He sold Specialty to Fantasy Records in the early 1990s, but continued to make money investing in oil and gas. In recent years, he has led the Art N. Rupe Foundation, which has supported education and research to shed “truth light on critical and controversial issues.”

Rup’s survivors are her daughter Beverly Rup Schwartz and her granddaughter Madeleine Kahan.

He was born Arthur Goldberg, the son of a Jewish factory worker, whose passion for black music began by listening to singers at a nearby Baptist church. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, briefly reviewed his film career, and decided to study music by studying “race recordings” and listening to the metronome and stopwatch. He founded Juke Box Records in the mid-1940s, but soon left to specialize. He also changed the surname Rupé, the family surname.

Rupe’s keen taste brought him success, but still cost him a heavy blow. In the mid-1950s, Cook wanted to expand his appeal beyond gospel and recorded several pop songs in the specialty, including the standard ballad, “You Send Me”. Rup found the song strange and was shocked by its white backing vocals. He allowed Cook and Blackwell, who became Cook’s managers, to acquire the copyright and release “You Send Me” on RCA.

“I didn’t think ‘You sent me’ was so wonderful. I knew it would have some inner value because Sam was good. “I never dreamed he would be a multi-million salesman,” said Rup, who added sarcastically, “A nice picture of me.”