This is great..a trip back to the 60′s. Give a look and a listen
NOW YOU KNOW
“Little Richard” as a Child
This is amazing to see. It’s Richard Wayne Penniman (aka Little Richard) about fifteen years before “Tutti Frutti, oh, Rudy….” If you’re familiar with early period Beatles, you’ll know that McCartney was heavily influenced by Little Richard.
A-whop bop-a-lu bop a-whop bam boom
Here is some very rare footage of “Little Richard” as a child, when he was just starting out in the music biz’ … from some movie with Van Johnson ..
http://www.wimp.com/oldschool/
submitted by: lak…………edited by: relhurg
I wish that when people make these claims they would site a reference. Little Richard was born on December 5, 1932. The earliest film I could find in Van Johnson’s filmography that was anything he would be wearing a uniform was called “Somewhere I’ll Find You” with Clark Gable, Robert Sterling, and Lana Turner. It was a 1942 film, but Van Johnson was supposed to be a luitenant – not an enlisted man. That would have made Little Richard 10 years old at the time of the film. The little piano player doesn’t look 10 to me.
I couldn’t find any film credits for Little Richard, but Richard Penniman’s first film credit was in 1987.
You may have a point because if you go by the tag line at the top, “a trip back to the 60′s”, that would have made Little Richard 28 if it was 1960. From the looks of the other members of the cast including Van Johnson, the film appears to be from the 40′s. I suggest you look through movie credits from that time period to find out who the piano player is, because there’s some doubt that it’s Little Richard.
I just found the movie on IMDB! It’s a film from 1946 called “No Leave, No Love” starring Van Johnson, Patricia Kirkwood, and Keenan Wynn. The piano number that’s attributed to Little Richard is actually Frank”Sugar Chile” Robinson.
Hi Larry, Enjoyed your comments to PorkWatch about the videos on Little Richard….please send me an email if there is some new info we ought to be correcting….thanks…..johng (relhurg)
Hi PW, Enjoyed reading your comments to Larry…I agree. As an editor I try to be certain of what I use but regardless it is great in that when a real egregious error is evidenced, then please always write a comment and help us get it straight. Many times it promotes neat dialogue for many of us to share…thank you…johng (relhurg)
I found the following at: http://www.rockabilly.nl/references/messages/sugar_chile_robinson.htm
SUGAR CHILE ROBINSON (By Dave Penny)
Born Frank Issac Robinson, 26 December 1938, Detroit, Michigan
The history of 20th century entertainment has been littered with the often ultimately tragic stories of its child prodigies; from Jackie Coogan in the 1920s, Shirley Temple in the 1930s, Toni Harper in the 1940s and Frankie Lymon in the 1950s. On the whole, although precociously talented, child entertainers were usually saddled with inferior, childish material that, while perhaps cute at the time, usually resulted in the youngster being regarded as a flash-in-the-pan novelty act which grew tiresome pretty quickly. The fall from grace, when they reached adolescence, was usually brutal, and some couldn’t handle the swift drop in popularity and turned to drink or drugs, while others accepted that their time in the spotlight had ended and retired more gracefully to concentrate their energies in other directions. One such was that tiny bundle of Detroit dynamite, “Sugar Chile” Robinson.
Born Frankie Robinson in Detroit on 28th December 1938, the youngest of seven children born to Clarence and Elizabeth Robinson, neither of whom were musicians, while yet a toddler “Sugar Chile” began pounding on the piano left at his house by an aunt – he reputedly hammered out a recognisable version of Erskine Hawkins’ current hit “Tuxedo Junction” at the age of two and by the following year was allegedly able to copy any music he heard on the radio. His nickname was bestowed about the same time when he developed a liking for sugar cubes, which his mother gave him to mollify him when he was upset, and he became her little “Sugar Chile”.
His father recalled:
“Sugar Chile was just able to walk when he started thumpin’ the piano. When he was about two, a friend of mine came over one evenin’. We just sittin’ around and he says to Sugar Chile, `Here’s a nickel, go play me a piece on the piano.’ We figured Sugar Chile would just slide his hands along the keys and then run for that money. Doggone it if that kid didn’t thump out `Tuxedo Junction’…”
In the early 1940s, aged about three, Sugar Chile Robinson entered and won the under 18s talent show at Detroit’s Paradise Theatre, and for the next few years he was an infrequent visitor to that famous theatre and his fame began to spread. In 1945 – still only six years old – he played guest spots at the Paradise with Lionel Hampton’s band and with Frankie Carle’s Orchestra; Hampton wanted to take the child on tour with his band, but the US Child Labor Laws prevented it. Nonetheless, the seeds had been sown, and after guesting with Carle’s band in October, before the month was out, he had been signed to a film contract by MGM and was on his way to Hollywood. While in Tinsel Town he filmed his cameo spot in the romantic wartime comedy film No Leave, No Love starring Van Johnson, performing Louis Jordan’s then current hit “Caldonia”. Reviews for Sugar Chile’s 90 seconds on screen were glowing, and MGM tried to persuade his father, Clarence, to countersign another contract for seven years, but the future looked bright and Clarence refused to tie his son to such a long sentence…and the same was true for the many recording contracts which came his way in the mid- to late 1940s. While in Los Angeles in November 1945, however, Frankie hooked up again with Hampton, and was featured with the bandleader and with Harry “The Hipster” Gibson on several AFRS radio transcriptions.
In March 1946 Sugar Chile performed at a star-studded bill in Washington DC for President Truman, contributing four full numbers including his speciality “Caldonia” during which he shouted out, “How’m I Doin’, Mr President?” which became something of a catch-phrase. 1946 was a halcyon year for little Frankie, with star spots on syndicated radio shows and his own revue at Detroit’s Downtown Theatre. Within a week of playing for President Truman, he headlined for a week at Chicago’s Regal Theatre and grossed over $36,000, a record that remains the biggest one-week attraction of the theatre’s entire history easily beating the jazz royalty of the day like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and he began smashing box office records wherever he appeared; by August he was out in California, employing the likes of Sammy Davis Jr and Dorothy Dandridge to appear in his revue! At the year’s end, his earnings were reported as $148,000.
1947 was much the same, with guest spots on many popular radio programmes and even an operetta My Maryland, while touring the nation’s theatre circuit with his father as manager and chaperone. Also in 1947 his success was celebrated with the filming of a seven-minute film featurette simply entitled Frankie “Sugar Chile” Robinson; a fine showcase for his talents, but still no contract resulted from the US recording industry.
Throughout the whole of 1948 the AFM strike meant that the recording studios were out of bounds to musicians. Not that that would have bothered Frankie anyway, as he was still too young to belong to the musicians union – Union boss J C Petrillo personally provided written consent for him to be included, making him the youngest ever member of the AFM at that time. With his special dispensation, in July 1949, he made his first records for the Capitol label in Los Angeles, when, in the consummate company of Leonard Bibbs on bass and drummer Zutty Singleton, Robinson took his first two releases into the Billboard R&B chart in late 1949; “Numbers Boogie” made it to number four, while “Caldonia (What Makes Your Big Head So Hard?)” only reached number 14.
Robinson toured with Count Basie in 1950 and made a celebrated musical short with the Basie Sextet and Billie Holiday in Hollywood in September to showcase his hits. The Christmas season of 1950 witnessed Sugar Chile’s first European release and “Christmas Boogie” c/w “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” sold well enough to spark a two-month tour of the UK in the summer of 1951, including rave reviews for his spot at the London Palladium, guest spots on BBC TV and a Melody Maker interview. He was a big hit on US radio and TV all through 1951 and was asked to return to Britain for the summer season of 1952, but it was the beginning of the end.
He was growing up and was at that awkward age, as a teenager, when his novelty effect had worn off, but he was still too young to be seriously considered a jazz musician. He still received a lot of fan mail from Europe and Africa, but at home in the US he was struggling. He had also missed out on a childhood, and he begged his Father to allow him to stop the touring and go to school. He told music historian Dan Kochakian: “I stopped recording after the Capitol sessions in 1952. All during that time I had a tutor, so even on the road, I was studying. That wasn’t what bothered me. I wanted to go to school…I wanted some school background in me and I asked my Dad if I could stop and I went to school because I honestly wanted my college diploma. I was ahead of my age group in school. I graduated from Northern High School at age 15 and most of my friends were seventeen or eighteen when they graduated. I graduated from Olivet College here in Michigan around 1960. I have a degree in psychology.”
His last single release was issued in August 1952, shortly followed by a 10″ compilation LP of boogie woogie that featured many of his 1952 recordings. There were one or two more reports in the trade papers of the day – he played four engagements in 1953, followed in 1954 by another three engagements, one of which, in August 1954, was at The Blue Note in Chicago with modern jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. Now billed as Frank Robinson, he played just two engagements throughout 1955 and 1956 – and at the ripe old age of eighteen he retired from show business.
In the 1960s he got a job with WGPR-TV, selling TV commercials, and briefly regained some contact with the music business, by co-owning the Detroit-based Lando and Lendo labels, which released 45s by Rufus Wonder – cousin to Stevie – and Carl Carlton. On the strength of these minor successes, Frank opened his own recording studio and started the AutoCap label, which also enjoyed a minor hit with “Don’t Walk Away” by The Superlatives.
Nothing more was heard of “Sugar Chile” for many years and the worst was feared, until July 2002 when the 63 year old former child star made a surprise appearance at a special concert celebrating the pre-Motown legends of Detroit music and then, in 2007 for the first time in fifty-five years, he was persuaded out of retirement to make the journey across the Atlantic to perform once again for his European fans at the “Rhythm Riot” weekender, where he delighted a generation of rock `n’ roll fans who had spent the last thirty years dancing to his popular club favourites such as “Numbers Boogie”, Whop Whop” and “Go Boy Go”.
Dave
These pages were saved from “This Is My Story” for reference usage only. Please note that these pages were not originally published or written by BlackCat Rockabilly Europe. For comments or information please contact Dik de Heer at dik.de.heer@hetnet.nl
Thank you, George B. I enjoyed reading your biography of SUGAR CHILE ROBINSON (By Dave Penny)
It was very informative and helpful in solving the mystery of the Little Richard misunderstanding in the original video… have had a wonderful amount of reads, comments, and followup links as the result of the original posting…again thanks for responding in such a professional manner….jong at Lifejustiz®
Yes, Butch, you have it correct 100%. Just another case of people making up stuff and passing it off as fact. As I have said before, 75% of the stuff on the internet is made-up crap, 20% is just lies, and the rest should be looked at carefully.
As soon as I saw the scene, I looked for the source, and could not imagine why anyone would post it without giving precise film details. Thanks so much for your checking.
Hi EpiBound…I do appreciate the information you have provided and will always be open to your accuracy in the video or details I place on Lifejustiz® Stay with me as I try and develop the interests to keep my readers attached and contributing ideas and dialogue….jg
I shared the video on Facebook and Billy Vera (who wrote and performed the hit record, “At This Moment” in 1986) informed me that the boy is, indeed, Sugar Chile Johnson.
Thank you, Matt….I have had a ton of action on that post and several who confirmed their doubt that the original information was Little Richard…I would appreciate you giving me permission to post your comments as a disclaimer of the validity of the original video identificatios….thanks…johng
John, you have my permission,
Matt
The child’s name is Frankie “Sugar Chile” Robinson. Born in 1938, he was a child prodigy.
Hi Sonja…Thank you so much for the information…with your permission I might like to publish that informatiions. Do you happen to know the citation of the info…I will not use your name if you wish me not to..thanks again….Johng
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This is not Little Richard, this is Frank Sugar chile Robinson. The name of the movie is No Leave, No Love starring Van Johnson. Please watch trailer of movie which you can find on TCM.com it states it all.
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/146272/No-Leave-No-Love-Original-Trailer-.html
Thank you, Tee…appreciate your comments…johng
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