Little Richard attended funeral services for a Georgia musician who helped him get started in the recording industry and once supplied him with a shirt and a car for a performance at the Apollo Theatre.
Melvin C. "Percy" Welch offered Little Richard a place in his band in 1952.
"I didn't have clothes," Little Richard recalled Saturday at Welch's funeral in Macon. "My mama had 12 kids. My daddy was a bootlegger, and the boot was empty that day."
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Welch, 75, died Feb. 8 of kidney failure.