Pat Boone’s Cover of “Tutti Frutti”


Little Richard - Pat Boone’s Cover of “Tutti Frutti”

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Little Richard

(b. 1932) One of Rock and Roll's flashiest performers, Little Richard has often proclaimed, "I am the innovator! I am the originator! I am the architect of Rock and Roll!" Such grandiose statements aren't too far off the mark. The flamboyant piano-pounder's wild, uninhibited mid-to-late-'50s singles are landmarks of the early Rock and Roll era, spotlighting his exuberant vocals and crystallizing his fusion of swinging New Orleans R&B and ecstatic Gospel fervor. Richard Penniman grew up in a poor, religious family in Macon, Ga. He sang Gospel as a child, and began performing secular R&B with various groups in the late...

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Pat Boone

(b. 1934) Clean-cut singer/actor Pat Boone had a lengthy run as a major recording star in the years prior to the British Invasion, scoring 38 Top 40 hits and becoming a familiar, wholesome presence in films and TV shows. Boone is notable figure in Rock and Roll’s early history for his smooth covers of then-current hits by such black artists as Little Richard and Fats Domino, which critics blasted as “watered down” versions aimed at listeners and radio stations for whom the originals were too musically — or racially — incendiary. While rocking out may not have been Boone’s forte,...