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Streams of Little Richard‘s back catalogue soared by over 2000% in the US following the rock’n’roll pioneer’s death last weekend.
The musician born Richard Wayne Penniman passed away on Saturday (May 9) after a battle with bone cancer. He was 87.
Billboard reports that songs by Little Richard experienced a tremendous surge in demand after his death was announced, with 4.1 million US streams of his back catalogue on May 9-10 representing a 2228% surge from streams on the previous two days (May 7-8).
The most-streamed Little Richard song was ‘Tutti Frutti’, which earned 412,000 streams on May 9-10 (up 1,210% from 32,000 streams on May 7-8). ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’ also experienced significant surges in streams.
10,000 downloads from across Little Richard’s back catalogue were also purchased on May 9-10, up 6,928% from a negligible amount on the previous two days.
Tributes from across the entertainment world poured in for Little Richard following the news of his death last weekend.
Paul McCartney remembered Little Richard “screaming into my life when I was a teenager” in his written tribute.
“I owe a lot of what I do to Little Richard and his style; and he knew it,” McCartney wrote. “He would say, ‘I taught Paul everything he knows.’ I had to admit he was right.”
Mick Jagger praised Little Richard as “the biggest inspiration of my early teens”, adding: “His music still has the same raw electric energy when you play it now as it did when it first shot through the music scene in the mid ’50s.”
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