Richard W. Penniman grew up in Macon, Georgia singing Gospel with his brothers and sisters in a group called The Penniman Singers. Although the family was religious, his father sold bootleg whiskey and ran a nightclub, maintaining a delicate balance between the sacred and the profane that would stay with Richard for the rest of his life.

The South he grew up in was totally segregated and, despite their inherent poverty, the black community developed a culture and language all their own. The depth of the black experience was reflected in the rich tradition of Gospel music that seemed to pour out of the churches and on to the streets. Young Richard was impressed by the power behind people like Brother Joe May and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and when Sister Tharpe invited him up on stage to sing with her at the Macon Auditorium, he was hooked.

Richard began to perform as a teenager in the late 1940s on the African American "showbiz circuit" in New Orleans and throughout the South, first doing female impersonation under the name Princess Lavonne, then, dropping the skirt but not the flamboyance, singing rythym and blues with sequins, pompadour, and strut.

Becoming a member of a loosely-knit gay community that had grown up out of the cross-dressing female impersonating tradition of the minstrel shows, he soon became friends with the legendary S.Q. Reeder (aka Esquerita), who taught him how to play the piano.

When Billy Wright brought him to the attention of prominent Atlanta dee-jay Zenas Sears, he recorded a few sides on Richard, and got him a contract with RCA in 1951. One of those records, Every Hour, became a local hit, and Richard returned to Macon a home-town hero.

Dubbing himself as "Little Richard", he touted himself as "king and queen of the blues".

His first hit, Tutti Frutti, became a top 10 with white audiences in 1955. Other hits include Lucille, The girl can't help it.

He claims a Christian conversion expelled (!!!) his homosexuality...