{"id":94792,"date":"2022-04-18T17:06:59","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T11:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/art-rupe-specialty-records-founder-who-helped-shape-rock-dead-at-104\/"},"modified":"2022-04-18T17:06:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-18T11:36:59","slug":"art-rupe-specialty-records-founder-who-helped-shape-rock-dead-at-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/art-rupe-specialty-records-founder-who-helped-shape-rock-dead-at-104\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Rupe, Specialty Records Founder Who Helped Shape Rock, Dead at 104"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Art Rupe, founder of the trailblazing R&B label Specialty Records that released early classics by artists like Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Lloyd Price, has died at the age of 104.<\/p>\n

The Arthur N. Rupe Foundation announced<\/a> his death Friday, adding that Rupe died at his home in Santa Barbara, California. No cause of death was provided.<\/p>\n

As founder and producer at the Los Angeles-based Specialty Records, Rupe oversaw a label that was responsible for songs that laid the bedrock for rock n\u2019 roll: Little Richard\u2019s \u201cTutti Frutti,\u201d Price\u2019s \u201cLawdy Miss Clawdy,\u201d Guitar Slim\u2019s \u201cThe Things That I Used to Do\u201d (produced and arranged by Ray Charles) and Larry Williams\u2019 \u201cBony Moronie\u201d and \u201cDizzy Miss Lizzy,\u201d the latter famously covered by the Beatles.<\/p>\n

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Rupe, born Arthur Goldberg on\u00a0September 5, 1917, grew up in the suburbs outside Pittsburgh. \u201cGrowing up in an ethnically and racially diverse neighborhood in\u00a0McKeesport, Rupe had developed a keen interest in Rhythm \u2018n\u2019 Blues and Gospel music,\u201d the foundation said. \u201cHe therefore chose to specialize in what was then called \u2018race records,\u2019 music made by and for African-Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

During World War II, Rupe worked on an engineering crew testing\u00a0Liberty\u00a0ships in Los Angeles; following the war, Rupe remained in the city, first trying to break into Hollywood, according to the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>, and then the music industry. In 1944, Rupe co-founded Juke Box Records \u2014 which released the Sepia Tones\u2019 regional hit \u201cBoogie #1\u201d \u2014 before parting ways with that label and founding his own, Specialty Records, in 1946.<\/p>\n

After first focusing on gospel and blues \u2014 including Joe Liggins\u2019 Number One hit \u201cPink Champagne\u201d in 1950 \u2014 Specialty began focusing on \u201crace records\u201d that appealed to both blacks and whites: Inspired by Fats Domino\u2019s success, Rupe traveled to New Orleans and discovered the 17-year-old Lloyd Price; in addition to his own hits on Specialty, it was Price who also recommended that Little Richard send demos to the label, with Specialty allowing Richard to buy himself out of a previous contract.<\/p>\n

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Despite a handful of Number One hits, Specialty struggled in the mid-Fifties until the arrival of \u201cTutti Frutti,\u201d an off-the-cuff risque ditty that was transformed \u2014 with the help of Specialty\u2019s go-to producer Robert \u201cBumps\u201d Blackwell \u2014 into a platinum smash and rock n\u2019 roll classic. Richard would also release the single \u201cGood Golly, Miss Molly,\u201d \u201cLong Tall Sally\u201d and his 1957 debut LP Here\u2019s Little Richard<\/em> on the Specialty label.<\/p>\n

Rupe had a teenaged Sam Cooke signed to Specialty as a member of the gospel group the Soul Stirrers, who had a hit in 1950 with their rendition of \u201cJesus Gave Me Water,\u201d which was added to the Library of Congress\u2019 National Recording Registry in 2020.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in what was a rare misstep in Rupe\u2019s legendary career, he disagreed about Cooke\u2019s approach to secular music, resulting in the singer leaving the label. Cooke then signed with Keen Records in 1957 and launched his solo career with a string of hits that began with \u201cYou Send Me\u201d; following the success of that single, Specialty rush-released Cooke\u2019s hit \u201cI\u2019ll Come Running Back to You\u201d that was recorded the previous year for the Specialty label.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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In the early Sixties, Rupe similarly missed an opportunity to sign a young British quartet that was touring with Little Richard in England, the Beatles. By that point, Rupe had become disenchanted with the music industry and instead focused on his burgeoning oil and gas company that he had established.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2011, Rupe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award, with Lloyd Price inducting his onetime label head into the Cleveland Institution. \u201cRock and roll as we know it would not exist without Art Rupe,\u201d the Rock Hall said of the hono<\/a>r.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe brought R&B and soul into the mainstream and launched Little Richard\u2019s career. Rupe\u2019s fastidious work ethic and uncanny musical intuition shaped the evolution of rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Art Rupe, founder of the trailblazing R&B label Specialty Records that released early classics by artists like Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Lloyd Price, has died at the age of 104. The Arthur N. Rupe Foundation announced his death Friday, adding that Rupe died at his home in Santa Barbara, California. No cause of death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":94793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Art-Rupe-Specialty-Records-Founder-Who-Helped-Shape-Rock-Dead.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}