Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,836

This is the grave of Little Richard.

Born in 1932 in Macon, Georgia, Richard Penniman grew up in the complicated Saturday Night/Sunday Morning world of the South. In other words, on Saturday night. his father sold bootleg whiskey and on Sunday morning he was a deacon in a local church. He was primarily interested in Pentecostalism because the music was so good. And as a kid, he was able to see so many of the great Black musicians of the era, such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and his favorite, Brother Joe May. These musicians combined religious and secular music in ways that would deeply influence the young boy. Penniman was a terrible student, but he liked music and became a pretty good sax player and of course pianist.

In 1946, Sister Rosetta Tharpe came through Macon. She heard Penniman play and since he was obviously much more interested in music than school, invited him to open for her, and then paid him, basically telling him that this was a good future for him. He listened. In 1949, he joined Doctor Nubillo’s traveling show, who was a kind of lunatic musician/pitchman who wore capes and other outlandish clothes. Let’s just say the soon to be Little Richard learned plenty here too. Now, his family was uncomfortable here. They did not like secular music. Little Richard was deeply religious but also had an undeniable attraction to secular life. That duality would define his life as he wildly swung back and forth between the two while struggling to moderate either. For example, he started performing in drag by 1950 as Princess LaVonne. Drag performing was not his only bit as he moved up the ranks of Black music in the early 50s, but he often did this. Now traveling around as a working musician, he saw all the great R&B in clubs when he was in bigger cities such as Atlanta. Billy Wright became a mentor, both in terms of vocals and fashion, and the older musician introduced Little Richard to a local DJ, who recorded a bunch of sides from the kid.

Richard he was struggling to make money. He ended up nearly quitting the music the industry in 1954, taking a job as a dishwasher in the Macon Greyhound station. But he was convinced to form a new band and tour with Little Johnny Taylor. Specialty Records signed him and sent him to New Orleans to record with a bunch of Fats Domino’s band. He liked that, since he was a big fan. But the recordings weren’t going anywhere. One night at a club though, he sat down and pounded out what would become “Tutti Fruitti,” a dirty little sex song that blew everyone’s minds. The song needed rewriting for the radio, but otherwise, he changed musical history that night.

Little Richard became the archetype of the crazy rock and roll musician. He wasn’t the only one of course–most of those early guys were nuts, very much including Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. His personality was beyond outsized and he played that to the hilt with every performance. He pretty much changed the world with the release of “Tutti Frutti” in 1955 and “Long Tall Sally” in 1956. “Tutti Fruitti” hit #2 on the R&B charts and #21 on the Billboard Top 100. It sold almost as well in England. “Long Tall Sally” went straight to the top to the R&B charts and #13 on Billboard. Both songs sold over a million copies. Little Richard’s extreme flamboyance was also something that no one had seen before. No Benny Goodman was this man! The live performances were totally insane–a crazy man wearing sequined capes playing piano with his feet and climbing on top of the instrument and doing whatever he felt like.

Of course everyone covered him, especially white artists in awe of this man. That included Jerry Lee, who covered lots of folks, but who had a talent for recognizing the genius of his contemporaries and translating them to his style of music. It also included Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, and just about everyone else. This is what people wanted to hear. This was also the moment where the strong radio barrier between the races was breaking down, but a lot of people were more comfortable hearing this crazy come from white folks instead of from a crazy Black man who wore his complex sexuality on his sleeve. And it’s not like Richard was hiding. He was in a bunch of the early rock and roll movies, playing himself because what else could he play?

But Little Richard was a complicated man, to say the least. In 1957, he left rock and roll to embrace evangelical Christianity. He went to a theological college, formed a spiritual revue, and finally went back to recording with real gospel music, produced by Quincy Jones no less. The music passed him by and he would never again be at the forefront of rock and roll, but his foundational importance was something everyone recognized. In 1962, he was coaxed back into rock and roll by the concert promoter Don Arden. Among those who opened for him in this comeback was The Beatles. He only wanted to play gospel numbers on this tour, but Sam Cooke was signed to open for him and the audience took to Cooke much more than hearing Little Richard sing about Jesus. So Richard decided he’d so that upstart a thing or two about rock and roll and went back to his secular material, pleasing everyone except perhaps himself.

Little Richard went back to recording secular music, releasing “Bama Lama Bama Loo” to quite a bit of success on the British charts, though not in the U.S. In 1964, Jimi Hendrix joined his band, which is one of those crazy things that you can only imagine, but they did not get along at all and Hendrix left fairly quickly. Part of the problem was that Little Richard was horrible about paying his band. Well, for the next 13 years, Little Richard toured a lot, did way too many drugs, tried to become a big recording artist, but really became a nostalgia act, sometimes opening for big rock acts. He left rock again in 1977 and went back to evangelicalism and would switch between the two for the rest of his life. He really only reconciled the idea that he could be a Jesus loving Christian and a wild man as part of the same act in the 80s.

Of course by then, Little Richard was a living legend. He appeared on U2’s “When Loves Comes to Town.” He’d be asked to perform on charity recordings. He did a bit of work with Living Colour. He recorded the theme song to the PBS kids show The Magic School Bus.

This post is too long as is, but let’s just say that Little Richard’s sexuality is extremely complicated and that history is well known and I think we can leave it at that. It just summed up everything else–he went from a well known love of orgies and a long long history of crossdressing to denouncing transgenderism and homosexuality during his Jesus phases. Little Richard was an extremely damaged person (his father was abusive among other things) and he dealt with it the best he could I guess. Which mostly wasn’t very good.

Little Richard died in 2020, at the age of 87.

Let’s listen to some Little Richard.

Little Richard is buried in Oakwood Memorial Gardens, Huntsville, Alabama.

Little Richard was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. If you would like this series to visit other people in the Hall, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Chuck Berry is in St. Louis and Elvis Presley is in Memphis. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.