Info  :   RICHARDSON, RUDI (RUDY) 

If nothing else, Rudi Richardson belonged among the losers and misfits who populated Sun's release schedule. His birth name was Rudolph Valentina Riles. His father's name was Cyrus Lockett and his mother's maiden name was Martha Marie Waidlington, so presumably Rudi was the offspring of an earlier marriage or affair between Martha and someone named Riles. He was born in Memphis on September 30, 1923, and was three when his family moved to Chicago. After attending Douglas School, he graduated from DuSable High and entered the club scene as Rudolphe Richardson – America's  Only Male Torch Singer. Starting in 1944, he worked steadily at Rudy's Chicken Shack, The Hurricane, El Casino, Rupneck's, and Kennedy's Honey Dripper Lounge.     An advertisement for his appearance at the Flamingo Lounge called it ''One of 63rd Street's gay spots'' – and this was in the late 1940s, at least twenty   years before ''gay'' became a neologism for homosexual. All of those nightspots were in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood, home to a thriving, clandestine gay scene. Some of Bronzeville's fabled club acts, including Tony Jackson, Sippie Wallace, Frankie ''Half-Pint'' Jaxon, and George Hannah were quite openly gay. Richardson joined their number. The scant accounts left to us mention that he usually accompaniment himself on the piano.     Rudy Richardson's first record appeared on New Jersey's Manor label in 1946. Chicago's Miracle Records signed him later that year and advertised a release party on August 16, 1946. ''Chauffeur'' on Miracle was his biggest hit. During a spoken monologue, he said, ''Chauffeur, take me home, I'm really gone... Don't think I'm wiggin', man, I'm just gone, you understand''. The louche hipster jive was Richardson's stock-in-trade. In December 1946, Manor released another Richardson recording on the flip side of a Cats & A Fiddle single. More singles appeared on Chicago's tiny Rim Records in 1949, but nightclub work paid the bills. Richardson appeared often in nightspots throughout the early 1950s, including a long residency at the Kitty Kat Club. By   1953, he was billed as Rudi (with an I) Richardson. In 1956, he opened McKie's Disc Jockey Lounge on Cottage Grove, the site of many legendary jazz shows.     On May 11, 1957, just weeks before the release of his Sun single, Richardson was in Chicago for the funeral of his father, Cyrus Lockett. The next time he received a mention was in June 1958 when he was found dead of denatured alcohol poisoning in a Nashville rooming house just one block south of Fisk University. Denatured alcohol was pure alcohol that had been rendered unfit for consumption, meaning that it was either a drink of last resort for an alcoholic or a means of committing suicide. Richardson was appearing at the Del Morocco nightclub, an upscale lounge where he'd sung on-and-off for the previous three years. His body was discovered at 12:30 p.m. On June 1. The coroner figured he might have died eight hours earlier. A report on June 3, 1958 in the Chicago Defender noted coyly that he'd participated annually in Finney's Fancy Dress Ball and that he'd never married.     A few weeks after Richardson's death, Johnny Cash recorded ''Fool's Hall Of fame'' for Sun. The recording was annotated as never to be released, although the reason is lost to time. Later that year, Huelyn Duvall's recording of the song appeared on Challenge, but wasn't a hit. Roy Orbison recorded it for Sun in 1957, but his recording didn't appear until 1973. Rudi Richardson didn't live long enough to see himself become a footnote in rock and roll history, much less capitalize upon it.

This release, Original release SUN 271 (US) 04/1957

Fools hall of fame   b/w   Why should I cry