Mick Jagger slept on the floor of his room, Paul McCartney received classes to imitate his characteristic scream and Elvis Presley recognized him as “the true king of rock.”
However, Little Richard (Macon, Georgia, USA, 1932 – Tullahoma, Tennessee, 2020) was always far from having the immense commercial and popular entity of his most famous students.
“You should all be fighting to record an album for me.
The greatest have been with me, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, the Beatles, Mick Jagger... Mick, do you remember?" he said, jokingly but very seriously, before the industry's top brass in 1989, on the occasion of Otis Redding's induction into the Rock Hall of Fame
Evidence of images from a 1984 Little Richard photo shoot.Bonnie Schiffman Photography (Getty Images)
His legacy is now honored by the film
Little Richard: I Am Everything,
released in cinemas in Spain last Friday, January 26, a documentary that reviews the singer's biography, his decisive musical contributions and the groundbreaking nature of his figure.
That rock was understood as a synonym for rebellion, of course, had a lot to do with the fact that one of its architects was a black and notoriously homosexual man who acted in the racist and homophobic southern United States in the 1950s.
“In the history of rock, for a long time, people have wanted to leave out figures like Little Richard or Esquerita,” Lisa Cortés, the director of
Little Richard: I Am Everything, tells ICON by video call.
“It is often difficult to tell the stories of black and queer people, because they often contradict the official narrative.
In this case, it happens with Little Richard and the story that Elvis was the father of rock.”
A segment of the documentary is dedicated to narrating how Little Richard's hits were immediately covered by white artists like Pat Boone, who based his career on adapting songs by black musicians, like
Tutti Frutti,
and removing all bite from them to adjust them to what was socially acceptable in the era of racial segregation.
And also to take it raw: Boone amassed a fortune (only Elvis Presley sold more than him in his time), while Richard barely received royalties for the versions.
The frenetic rhythm of songs like Long Tall Sally responded to a strategy by Little Richard to boycott Boone, who was not capable of singing at that speed.
Elton John and Little Richard in 1990.Lester Cohen (Getty Images)
Born and raised in a city in the American South, Macon, which had been a supply depot for the Confederate army in the Civil War and where lynchings of black people were the order of the day, Richard Wayne Pennyman, as his real name was, He was the third of 12 siblings (seven boys and five girls) and had a difficult relationship with his father, due to his homosexuality and his taste for makeup and feminine clothing.
The song with which he achieved fame, Tutti Frutti, had lyrics about anal sex, conveniently rewritten in the studio version after producer Bumps Blackwell heard him perform it live and instantly identified it as a banger.
The war cry with which it begins (Spanishized,
“Aumbabuluba balambambú!”)
, which phonetically imitates the sound of a drum kit, and the wild pounding of Richard's piano became music history.
And the song generated even more history, since it established the rhythmic standard for rock.
Little Richard during a conference in Atlanta in 2013.Rick Diamond (WireImage for NARAS)
“What made Little Richard a genius was his gift for mixing aspects of
blues,
gospel and other different means of expression in his music, which were combined with his
queer side.
That someone in 1955 was able to make such a unique recipe is impressive,” reflects Lisa Cortés.
The artist, who found a school in church music and who went on stage for the first time invited by the evangelical singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe (an idol for him and considered a precursor of rock), gave some of his first performances dressed in woman, with the nickname Princess LaVonne.
In an archival interview collected in the documentary, Richard maintains that he exaggerated his pen and mannerisms so that white men would not see him as a threat to their women and could perform in their venues.
“He certainly believed so.
But it doesn't make much sense,” says the director.
“Those environments were also very homophobic and they sometimes arrested him because they considered his behavior indecent.”
Little Richard backstage in 1959.V&A Images (Getty Images)
Little Richard's feeling of guilt regarding his sexuality greatly conditioned his life.
At the height of his success, when millions of copies of his recordings were selling and filling venues throughout the country, the singer decided to abandon rock to study theology, married a woman and asked everyone around him to refer to he with the name of Reverend Richard.
At that time, he released purely gospel albums, such as the two volumes of
Pray Along With Little Richard
(1960), and refused to perform live the songs for which he was famous, such as
Lucille, Keep A-Knockin , Good Golly, Miss Molly
or the aforementioned, since rock was, he explained, “far from the divine.”
A promotional portrait of a very young Little Richard.Gems (Redferns)
His competitive nature, however, led him in 1962 to return to his usual songs during a tour in Europe with Sam Cooke, given the jealousy he felt over the public's enthusiastic reception of his fellow performer.
Then took place his, after the fact, notable alliance with the then first-time Beatles, whom, grateful for their admiration, he taught, advised and sponsored.
With them he shared the musical season in Hamburg that finished forging the British band.
Divorced from his wife, Richard once again admitted his homosexuality, although, far from normalizing it, on multiple occasions he made it clear that his inclinations seemed impure to him.
In 1982, in an interview on
Late Night With David Letterman
, he again disavowed his orientation and proclaimed that “God created Adam to be with Eve, not Stephen.”
He also publicly acknowledged his drug addiction, joking that he should have been called Little Cocaine at times.
In the book
The Extraordinary Life of Little Richard,
by Mark Ribowsky, published in Spain last 2023 by Libros Cúpula, other shadows of the character are pointed out, such as his toxic working relationship with Jimi Hendrix, who for a time was his guitarist and whom, According to the late musician's then-girlfriend, Richard sexually harassed her.
“I paid myself poorly, I lived poorly and I was burned out,” Hendrix summarized at the end of their collaboration.
According to the book, the star was tyrannical towards the members of his band, whom, among other directives, he forbade from smiling on stage.
Little Richard at the Oscars in 1988. Avalon (Getty Images)
Rediscovered by a new generation in the era of psychedelia and, later, converted into a sympathetic figure who frequently appeared in galas, television programs and films, Richard maintained contradictory and changing positions in the eighties and nineties.
Filmmaker John Waters, who appears in the documentary and claims that he grew his distinctive thin mustache in homage to Little Richard, interviewed him in 1987 for
Playboy
and provoked the singer's ire for making fun of his supposed rebirth as a heterosexual;
However, given his need for attention, Richard was flattered when the text was published.
He also excitedly toured various award ceremonies in the nineties, when he suddenly received all the tributes that, like so many black performers, had been spared throughout his career.
“There are many contradictions in the figure of Little Richard.
But his entire life consisted of navigating that gray area, through popular culture and transgression,” explains Lisa Cortés.
Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson and Keith Richards publicly paid tribute to him upon his death in 2020, and the film
Elvis
(2021), by Baz Luhrmann, represented him and placed him in the place he deserved in Presley's history, without hiding the trace of the African American singer about his music.
Due to his controversial final appearances in ultra-conservative Christian media, Waters, for his part, regretted that Richard died “completely homophobic, saying terrible things about gays and trans people.”
Regarding whether the singer managed to make peace with himself, Cortés believes that “one can only speculate.”
“There is no doubt that, in those last days, his most important relationship was with God.
“He felt like he didn’t have anyone else,” she says.
Regardless of religious beliefs, the premiere of the documentary in cinemas around the world proves that Little Richard, in one way or another, has more than managed to transcend.
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