NEW YORK — Music executive Art Rupe, whose Specialty Records was a premier label during the formative years of rock ‘n roll and helped launch the careers of Little Richard, Sam Cooke and many others, has died. He was 104.
Rupe, who was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 2011, died Friday at his home in Santa Barbara, California, according to the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The foundation did not release his cause of death.
The Greensburg, Pennsylvania, native was a contemporary of Jerry Wexler, Leonard Chess and other white businessmen-producers who helped bring Black music to a general audience. He founded Specialty in Los Angeles in 1946 and gave early breaks to such artists as Cooke and his gospel group the Soul Stirrers, Little Richard, Lloyd Price, John Lee Hooker and Clifton Chenier.
https://www.stardem.com/art-rupe-pioneering-record-executive-dead-at-104/article_d40d2a3b-3cd4-5959-b806-1b50258be835.html