Art Rupe, an early rock ‘n’ roll music mogul and founder of the influential Specialty Records, died April 15 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 104.

Specialty championed such indelible artists as Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Lloyd Price and Percy Mayfield after its launch in Los Angeles in 1946. Rupe was also an oil and gas entrepreneur. He spent his final decades devoted to the work of his Arthur N. Rupe Foundation in Santa Barbara.

Rupe was born Arthur Goldberg to a working-class Jewish family in Pennsylvania. He grew up outside the Pittsburgh area.

According to the foundation, Rupe “attended college at Virginia Tech and Miami University of Ohio, and in 1939 set off for Los Angeles to make his way in the world.” He changed his surname to Rupe after moving West, after learning from his grandfather that it was the family name before Goldberg was adopted at Ellis Island.