Lisa Cortés’ documentary ‘Little Richard: I am everything’ premiered. Intra-Edit festival The film, which will be released this Friday, emphasizes the ‘queer’ and racial factors that, according to the director’s thesis, deprived the singer, who died in 2020, of the crown of the king of rock and roll. Without losing sight of the character’s bleeding contradictions. From the movie and authorized biography ‘The Explosive Story of Little Richard’ (Penniman Books, 2008), the great and hocus-pocus artist is outlined in a book by Charles White, reading which is like smoking an unfiltered carton of cigarettes.
Childhood
Richard Wayne Penniman (Macon, Georgia, 1932)He is the third of 12 children born to Leva Mae and Charles ‘Bud’ Penniman. One leg was shorter than the other, so he walked unevenly, and his head was, in his assessment, “enormous.” Between this and the fact that he prefers playing dolls with girls to throwing rocks with boys, They called him ‘abortion’, ‘faggot’, ‘pig’, ‘girl’… He had sexual relations with women and men, sometimes for money, often dirty. Her father, who was the first to blame her for her effeminacy, was shot and killed. The jukebox bar he operated outside the Tip In Inn in 1952. My father was also a church minister and bricklayer, and he sold moonshine.
old show business
Little Richard began singing ‘professionally’ in 1949 to attract medium Doctor Nubilo.. He soon started Doc Hudson’s traveling show selling snake ointment. He sang Louis Jordan’s ‘Caldonia’, the only secular song he knew. From there he went to B. Brown’s orchestra and later to various traveling variety shows where he performed in drag. Princess Lavonne was one of her stage names. As a member of the Broadway Follies revue, he gained access to clubs and movie theaters across the South with live entertainment between films. In 1951 he released his first single called ‘Taxi blues’ and ‘Every hour’ (RCA)..
Teachers
Billy Wright had a decisive influence on Little Richard.. According to the student, both for her “style of singing the blues with the screams typical of gospel music” and for her aesthetic: striking clothes, a majestic ‘pompadour’ permed hair and make-up. Through Wright he obtained the first recording mentioned above. He was taught to play the piano by Esquerita, who dressed much more strikingly and displayed a much more impressive ‘pompadour’ than Wright. He met her at the all-night diner at the Macon Greyhound bus terminal; At a restaurant that Little Richard frequents, “for sex, of course,” as he puts it. Forward, used musical, visual and verbal exaggeration as a protective layer This allowed him to do whatever he wanted in a world that was a little joker-like and hostile to weird people.
‘Tutti Frutti’
The song was released by the Specialty label in October 1955. original lyrics obvious references to anal sex. It reached number 2 on the US rhythm and blues charts and number 21 on the pop charts. Opening jungle scream (“A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!”) A spell containing the meaning of the first rock and roll: madness, debauchery, freedom, joy, creativity. Because of its effect, ‘Tutti frutti’ may be rock and roll’s clearest birth certificateEven though all the ingredients of the potion were already present in black American music. This would be followed by ‘Tall Sally’, ‘Smash It’, ‘She Can’t Help It’, ‘Lucille’, ‘Keep Knocking’, ‘Well Done Miss Molly’…
cultural plunder
Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly and other rockers soon recorded versions of Little Richard songs.sometimes it is more successful than its publications. Even though they were white, it didn’t bother him after all. But he was furious that Pat Boone’s reading of ‘Tutti frutti’ recorded by Sosaina had surpassed his own in the charts. Logically: it is more of a castration than a version.
God
His family was part of Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, and some of his relatives were preachers. He’s been singing the gospel since he was little. The Klan even founded the band The Penniman Singers. While on tour in Australia in 1957, he interpreted a difficult plane ride and a fireball appearing in the sky (he was told it was the launch of Sputnik 1, but this was not true) as divine signs and decided to abandon secular music. He attended Oakwood University, the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, to pursue his Bible studies. He prayed, preached, recorded religious albums (among them ‘The King of the Gospel Singers’ from 1962, whose sessions he influenced Quincy Jones) and married Ernestine Campbell. “I was a terrible husband. “I wouldn’t marry someone like me, with diamonds in his eyes instead of nails and rubies.” The marriage failed, just as it had during his time at Oakwood: A seminarian like Little Richard was sweet, but his yellow Cadillac, his fame, his lack of discipline, and his homosexual relationship with another student were too much for the institution. He would change preaching and rock and roll for the rest of his career.until at last he succeeded in reconciling the one with the other.
queen of england
British concert promoter and later artist manager Don Arden, a music industry tough guy whose methods bordered on gangsterism, persuaded Little Richard to sign up for a UK tour with Sam Cooke, Jet Harris, Sounds Incorporated and Gene Vincent. At first he was just making presentations because he didn’t have a work visa. The singer traveled with young keyboard prodigy Billy Preston to present a show of religious songs. Such was the case on the first evening in Doncaster on 8 October 1962. Arden had heralded Little Richard’s performances as her return to rock and roll.. The pressure and rivalry with Cooke had an effect, and from the second concert onwards the performances turned into apotheotic rock and roll, with stage tricks such as playing dead to resurrect like lightning. Brian Epstein, agent Beatlesarranged for the artist to add two dates as the main support act to his tour in the Liverpool area. The foursome were eating out of their hands, especially Paul McCartney. Little Richard took the future Fab Four to extra club gigs in Hamburg, a city where the band had played before. At the end of 1963 the Everly Brothers returned to England as part of the atomic cartel along with Bo Diddley and others. rolling stones. “Chuck Berry is an all-time favorite alongside Bo, but neither could beat Richard on stage.” Mick Jagger’s quote.
Reprise Trilogy
1960s counterculture He phosphatized previous blues, rhythm and blues and rock and roll artists, even though it all started with them. From the first to the last, they remained a legacy of the early 70s, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t make good records. Little Richard, for example, recorded a wonderful trilogy of new material for the then very relevant Reprise label: ‘The rill thing’ (1970), ‘King of rock and roll’ (1971) and ‘The Second Coming’ (1972). The cover of the third is the height of ‘queer’ pride at a time when ‘queer’ activism goes unnoticed.
Sexuality
HE It conflicts with his religious education and general homophobia on the one hand, and his homosexuality on the other, This movement, created in Little Richard, culminated, at least publicly, in a 1982 interview on David Letterman’s television show. After bragging about being one of the first gay men to come out of the closet, He said he was no longer gay because “God created Adam to be with Eve, not Steve.”. This was not one of his wisecracks, but a favorite slogan of the American Christian right, which was on the rise during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It is an example of a book that is a powerful amplifier of the self-hatred felt by many homosexuals in an increasingly conservative society and of the voices that see AIDS as divine punishment for homosexuals. Perhaps his self-loathing had been exacerbated by a decade of frenzied drug use..
Copyright
In 1984, Little Richard legally sought millions in unpaid royalties from Specialty and music publishers Venice and ATV. He left his record label to devote himself to God for the first time. For example: “Walt Disney had Donald Duck sing ‘Tutti frutti’ and used my songs in three of his movies… But Disney didn’t even have the details to send me a Christmas card.” We can assume that all artists since the beginning of modern popular music, especially black artists, have been ripped off by the industry to a greater or lesser degree, but Little Richard was the pioneer of taking the scream to the sky. The case was settled out of court: michael jacksonThe owner of the ATV, to which the Beatles catalog belonged, would loosen the fly. Little Richard and David Johansen were responsible for presenting the Best New Artist award at the 1988 Grammy Awards ceremony. The native of Macon attracted attention with a flashy package and a bitter speech, in which he was pilloried by the music community for not knowing him well enough.