Arthur N. ‘Art’ Rupe has left an indelible mark on American music thanks to his recordings of Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Percy Mayfield, Guitar Slim, Roy Milton, Joe Liggins, the Soul Stirrers, and many other Blues, R&B, and Gospel performers on the Specialty label. Rupe launched Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 after partnering in the Atlas label in 1944 and starting the Juke Box label in 1945. Specialty remained in operation under Rupe’s ownership until 1990 when it was sold to Fantasy Records. The roster of Specialty hits includes Guitar Slim’s ‘The Things That I Used to Do,’ Percy Mayfield’s ‘Please Send Me Someone to Love,’ Lloyd Price’s ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy,’ and all of Little Richard’s wild Rock ‘n’ Roll hits of the 1950s (many of them recorded in New Orleans). Rupe was born Arthur Goldberg in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1917, and grew up hearing black music in a racially mixed environment near Pittsburgh. After attending UCLA and deciding to get into the entertainment business in California, he changed his name to Rupe. A studious entrepreneur, Rupe purchased stacks of records from ghetto shops to systematically analyze the records that were selling to black buyers and concluded that the secret ingredient was ‘a big band sound, expressed in a churchy way.’ In recent years, through his Arthur N. Rupe Foundation, he has endowed academic programs, scholarships, and various community institutions.
