Still in pain following hip surgery last fall, Little Richard had no problem getting down to business. Minutes into our recent phone conversation from his home, the rock 'n' roll founder broke into "Tutti Frutti," his first hit single recorded 55 years ago next month. As he sang, his voice sounded sweet, the lyrics emerging slowly, almost as a gospel ballad. After a dozen bars, the 77-year-old legend stopped abruptly and laughed: "That's right—the song that started it all!"

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An illustration of Little Richard Ken Fallin

Even by Little Richard's standards, the remark is an understatement. Recorded on Sept. 14, 1955, the song about a girl named Sue who knows just what to do unleashed a new, sexually charged form of rock 'n' roll and transformed American culture. From the record's opening salvo ("Awop-bop-a-loo-mop Alop-bam-boom!"), Little Richard delivered the lyrics like an arsonist warning of a blaze. More than just another blues shouter, Little Richard had urgency and electrifying movie-star looks.

To put his early voltage in perspective, consider this: Elvis Presley recorded four of Little Richard's singles on his way up in 1956. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame notes that, more than any other performer of the period except Presley, Little Richard "blew the lid off the fifties." His early works included 15 Billboard Top 100 hits by 1958, as well as appearances in two early rock movies for teens—"Don't Knock the Rock" (1956) and "Mister Rock and Roll" (1957)—and the comedy, "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956), for which he wrote the film's grinding theme.

But Little Richard's influence wasn't confined to rock's golden age. He was a headliner in Europe in the early 1960s and was idolized there by the Beatles and Rolling Stones. He gave Tina Turner charisma lessons at the behest of husband Ike Turner, and he hired and fired Jimi Hendrix. In fact, Little Richard's influence can be felt in virtually every top rock act since 1955—from Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis to Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Prince and many of today's rappers.

"I should be better recognized today for sure," said Little Richard in a hushed voice. "I am the beginning. I am the originator."

Richard Penniman was born in Macon, Ga., in 1932—one of 12 children who lived in a house on a dirt road. The family sang gospel together in churches and at local functions. Little Richard's first stage appearance came in his early teens, when gospel star Sister Rosetta Tharpe heard him sing and invited him on stage to accompany her.

Restless, Little Richard quit high school and joined Dr. Hudson's Medicine Show, where he sang and watched the theatrical Hudson captivate audiences. In the late '40s, Little Richard sang in a string of Georgia territory bands, including B. Brown and His Orchestra. "Brown made up my stage name without telling me," Little Richard said. "When I first saw it on a sign, I didn't realize it was me."

Taught basic piano as a child, Little Richard learned to play boogie-woogie from Esquerita, an R&B singer who sported a pompadour that Little Richard later adapted. Four lackluster recording sessions followed for RCA and Peacock between 1951 and 1953. Then Little Richard's Peacock contract was bought out for $600 in mid-1955 by Specialty Records, which was looking for a new Ray Charles.

In September, Specialty producer Bumps Blackwell took him to New Orleans, to the famed J&M Recording Studio, where Fats Domino had recorded his hits. But the first session was dull. So Blackwell called for a break, and the pair went to the Dew Drop Inn on LaSalle Street for lunch.

Spotting a piano, Little Richard accompanied himself singing a song he had made up years earlier with X-rated lyrics. "I was like the rappers today, creating dirty words to blues songs on the spot," he said. "One of them was called 'Tutti Frutti.'"

The high-energy tune was perfect for the Specialty recording session—but the lyrics had to go. "There was no way they were going to make it onto the radio," Little Richard said. He and Dorothy La Bostrie, a local aspiring songwriter, cleaned up the words.

When "Tutti Frutti" was released that November, the song was akin to a champagne bottle smashing against a ship's bow. The single entered Billboard's Top 100 chart in January 1956, peaking at No. 17. "Long Tall Sally" followed (hitting No. 6), with "Slippin' and Slidin'," "Rip It Up" and "Ready Teddy" next.

In "The Girl Can't Help It," starring Jayne Mansfield, Little Richard's on-screen act was box-office dynamite. "I had started standing at the keyboard so I could do my stage routine without having to get up," he said. "I also began putting my leg up on the piano, like Otis Turner."

In each of his three early movies, Little Richard said, white executives tried to contain him. "They didn't want me letting myself go," he said. "They kept wanting me to be stiffer, telling me 'Here's how a black man would perform this.' I said, 'Now how would you know that?'"

In 1957 and 1958, Little Richard's hits included "Lucille," "Keep a'Knockin'" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly." He also became a Seventh-Day Adventist minister, a move some said was designed to let him escape his paltry Specialty Records contract. "That's not true," he said. "I became a minister because my family had always loved the Lord and I felt the calling."

Little Richard also began dressing more flamboyantly. "I wore makeup and wild outfits to keep white people from focusing on me as some kind of a sexual threat," he said. "I knew that if I looked crazy, not cool, I wouldn't be seen that way. And it worked. People focused on the music."

Faced with financial strains, he toured Europe in 1962 with the Beatles as the smaller opening act. In Hamburg, Germany, he taught Paul McCartney his signature high-pitched "Wooo." "I learned that from gospel singer Marion Williams—she added it for emphasis," Little Richard said.

Throughout the '60s, Little Richard toured the U.S. and Europe as a rock-revival star, often competing with younger acts. One of those concerts was the Atlantic City Pop Festival, held two weeks before Woodstock in August 1969.

"Janis Joplin sang and screamed and had the audience crazy—I mean really crazy," Little Richard recalls. "Backstage, the promoters told me they were fine ending it right there and that I didn't have to go on last. I told them following Janis wasn't a problem. I went out and sang 'Lucille' in the rain, throwing my clothes into the audience. The crowd went really crazy, and I got all the big press the next day."

In the '70s, Little Richard returned to the ministry and produced another gospel album. In 1986 he recorded "Great Gosh A'Mighty!" for the film "Down and Out in Beverly Hills." The part he had in the movie as Orvis Goodnight led to more Hollywood work and revived his rock career.

"I always acted wild and dressed wild because I wanted to make the music good," Little Richard said. "I wanted to be different more than anything else."

Mr. Myers writes about jazz and R&B daily at www.jazzwax.com.