May 18, 2026 • 56 mins
He screamed, shimmered and rewrote popular music and then disappeared from the throne he built. This episode reveals Little Richard’s unstoppable rise, painful erasure, and lifelong battle between the divine and the profane. A vivid, funny and heartbreaking meditation on race, queerness, faith and why rock and roll history still gets its origin story wrong.
Additional archive: Tutti Frutti by Little Richard, Speciality, 1957
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
One small thing before we get started. If you've been
enjoying Big Lives, it would mean a lot if you
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just with the messy, complicated truth of how icons are made,
(00:40):
send them this episode, Oh thank you or well, they
may have a lot of thoughts. Either way, you'll have
a good conversation with them about it and it'll be great.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So Okay, here we.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Go from BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
This is Big Lives.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm Kyrie, and on this show we take a single
cultural icon and break down their life and their impact
using the BBC Archives and emmanual. Today we are talking
about the one and only Little Richard.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Okay, I'm so excited about this because I know so
little about this man and I feel like I should
know more about this man.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, when is your kind of stock image of him?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Honestly, my stock image of him is obvious, just very
like everlescent, super charismatic performer, someone who I don't know
how to say. I don't know if it's because of
like one of his most famous songs, Touty Fruity, but
I just think of a very out there with like
a bunch of like makeup and like his head one
up in a silk scarf. It's like a total character.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Your stock image is exactly correct, and it's a man
like this song Boom, like I remember sicking that as
(02:07):
a little kid. Yeah, So that's the other thing I
would say, at this stage in history, he's probably like
the kind of thing you play at a kid's party, right, sure, well,
all right, so lay down the basics of Little Richard.
You know, this is despite being somebody who plays at
kids parties now or who you would play at a
kid's party now, is in fact one of, if not
(02:27):
the most crucial architect of rock and roll. First with
that song Touty Free released in their late fifties, followed
up with stuff like long tas Sally and rip it
Up you Know on Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Just Got Paid is one of the lyrics and rip
it Up.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
He has this really distinctive style that you are familiar with,
big boufont hair, the pancake makeup, is really important. Like
you weren't supposed to miss the makeup you We're supposed
to see him in his bay cake makeup, flamboyant costumes,
all of it, and actually he little Richard. I think
(03:02):
it's the best person to introduce Little Richard. So let
me just play you a little clip from what he
did during.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
A BBC interview.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I've found in nineteen seventy two that the interviewer is
trying to talk to him and he just interrupts him.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can I say something? Let it all hang out?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
You don't pull a Little Richard from Donald Macon Georgia.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I am the king of rock and roll. Oh oh my,
my mama.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
I just had to do that, and now I feel
so much better.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I got it out.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Wow Wow. He's like one pop preacher, one pop just
flamboyant diva.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Basically all of this is gonna be relevant those you
are using all the right words ever, vested, charismatic preacher,
flamboyant diva, like probably the best five words to describe
Little Richard. Uh So that that clip is him in
a nutshell. And like I said today, it is uncontroversial
to say that he was the king of rock and roll.
(03:58):
Like countless rock and roll legends have followed. His sound
is starting with Elvis Presley, you know, and they acknowledged
it at one point.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I was surprised, Leer, I don't know if you knew
this man.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He was mentoring the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at
one point actively actively. Yeah, they were like turning to
him for help. Paul McCartney apparently has I don't I'm
not much a Beatles fan. I'm gonna be honest, sacrilegrig No,
I don't want to start no stuff. I'm just saying like,
it's not really it wasn't part of my listening anything,
(04:32):
I guess, but is there. I mean, if you are
a listener, there's this, I guess. Paul McCartney does a
woo himself. Uh right, it does do that he learned
from Little.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Richard and wait wait wait he like stole it from
the Little Richard or then you're saying actively just like
how to do.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Little Richard taught it to it?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Whoa yes, okay, okay, because.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
He was actively mentoring the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Jimmy Hendricks played back up for Little Richard at one
point early in his career, but they were too big
of personalities to be on the stage together. So they
did have quite a bit of conflict and that did last.
But the point of all that, I'm here to tell
you that it is a fact at this point that
rock and roll began in southern black and frankly mostly
(05:19):
queer juke joints, that in the early twentieth century, where
this kid, Richard Penniman, found it, developed it, and ultimately
took it to the mainstream in nineteen fifties. And that
is the history of rock and roll. But for many,
many years, no one acknowledged that fact, even as when
(05:39):
I encountered him when I was a kid, you know,
in the eighties, he was still at that point considered
a flash in the pan.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Like I was going to say, like as like I
had my music education as a kid in like the
early two thousands, and yeah, he's almost like this guy
but shows up for a little bit, almost to some
sort of like musical prophet emon disappears.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, or a comedic blip, you know, like he never
ever had the commercial success of the white artists who
followed him. And a few years ago, so I had
the chance to interview a filmmaker woman named Lisa Cortez,
who made this incredible documentary for HBO.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
About Little Richard. Little Richard, I Am everything. It's called.
Everybody should go look at it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And I learned in talking to her how intentional that
erasure was, how he got left out for so many
years of the history of rock and roll, it's starting
in real time, because he was really a threat to
white culture in the fifties. I also learned how as
a consequence of that eraser, he really was hurt.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
After that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
This was this man who had just been so full
of joy and inspiration and revolution, he struggled to embrace
any of those things about himself.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And so I was thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Challenging arc of Little Richard's story when I started looking
around in the BBC archives for stuff about him, because
I'm into him, and I found a couple of really
remarkable interviews he did with the BBC in August of
nineteen seventy two. These were recorded in just a really
pivotal moment in his life story, and I think if
(07:22):
we listen to them together, you can start to understand
both the incredible.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Inspiration of this man and the horrible tragedy of this man.
So that's what I want to do. I want to
listen to these two interviews with you.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You down, I listen. Let it all hang out, my friend,
Let's do it all.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Right, Let's start after the break. Welcome back. It's Big Lives.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We're talking about Little Richard and okay, Emmanuel, let me
set up what's happening for a Little Richard in August
of nineteen seventy two as he sits for an interview
with the BBC. He's in London for a big concert
at Wimbley Stadium. And you know, he's been in and
out of the limelight sort of off and on since
the fifties.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
He got really big in the late fifties, and he's
just sort of been coming in and out of public conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And he personally sees this show that he's going to
be doing in London as a chance to like reassert
his status as the king of rock and roll.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's sort of like his big sort of redemption tool.
And it's in the UK, home of rock and roll
in that eight by the seventies. That's why rock and
roll is coming out.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Of right where all these people that he has taught
rock and roll have come and so he's back to
claim his status atop the mountain, and he's pushing ticket
sales right, So he's doing interviews and the night before
the concert he goes on this late night BBC show
and it's it is a time capsule. I mean, the
background is warmly lit in tan colors. There's a soft glow,
(09:04):
very early seventies. The interviewer is this scrawny British white
guy in a Paisley shirt and he's kind of awkward.
He's leaning on this big grand piano and Little Richard
is sitting at the keys, looking every bit the epic
diva that he is, you know, the diamond headband and
(09:25):
the big boufond hair, the makeup. He's got this flowing,
flared peacher maybe it's kind of pinkish two piece, yeah,
with like big square rhinestones on it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
He's just doing it all. And the show begins. He
starts playing right, and he's.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Riffing, and the camera's there, you know, and right from
the jump here though, the interviewer starts like trying to
talk to real Richard like he's a has been right,
like where's he been?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But Little Richard is here to insist I've gone nowhere.
I am still the king.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
Little rich It's now sixteen year Senor had your first hits.
Still realize that when you must have realized that to
your performances. Now they are people who weren't even alive
when you first began recording.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yes, but I have woke him up.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Now, everybody that wasn't alive when I started and was gone,
I have brought the spirit and put it on them.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
They have resurrected. So this is like the vibe of
all of.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
His interviews in this period, right, and this in every
way he goes. He's just being casually disrespected like that.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And he's being like, I'm here, I'm the king, I've
been the king.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I woke him up.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
He's like simultaneously like uh, celebratory and defensive, you know,
at the same time. And he's got these two things coming.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's trying to be like, I never went anywhere, but
I'm offended that you think I went somewhere, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So that's generally the vibe.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
H And at one point in this interview, the interviewer asks,
you know, little rich Or, just the basics of how
he got started.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
How did you develop your piccular style, your resonant voice.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, uh, you know, I used to be an opera singer.
I used to sing opera. You didn't know that I'd
ask the music.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I didn't know that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Then I started singing rock. I was playing for the church.
My grandfather was a preacher, ravin Pennaman.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
He died.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
I used to play for him every Sunday morning because
he was taking up collections about seven times. You know,
just one more penny, just one more quarter and more
you give me to steal one of another one.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
So I used to play two of the fruit in
long tall salad. Why he'd be preaching, but he didn't
know what.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So let me try to translate some of this, because first,
I'm not even sure that he ever sang opera.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I'm gonna say that's the myth making happening here. It
might be.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I can't say he didn't, but he does the most.
Anytime he talks about himself, he calls it. You know,
he Muhammad Ali of music, as he has said. So
you know he's saying a lot in that clip. It
must be unpacked. This is the short story of rock
and roll. I guess kind of in there which passes
through opera and in this particular telling, I don't know
if that's true.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
He does the most and who.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You never corrected Beaver in their stories?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Oh, I think I've heard that somewhere as well. All right, well,
I'm not going to correct Richard.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Pittaman, but let me tell you what happened in his life.
Richard Binnaman born in Making, Georgia, nineteen thirty two. As
he says, his grandfather was a preacher. He grew up
in church where.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
He played music, and this music deeply influenced him.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It was, you know, the raucous sound of music in
Pentecostal and Baptist churches in the South in the thirties, right,
Like you have a sense of what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But within that little Richard was truly a wild child.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
He was nicknamed Warhawk the point because, yeah, because he
would interrupt the service trying to sing with his He
would just be screaming.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
At hollar.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And so they had to like stop him from singing
in church at one point. And then when I spoke
to the filmmaker Lisa Cortez who made this documentary about him,
that I love. She told me a detail about his
childhood that she, for some bizarre reason, left out of
her documentary. But he liked to play pranks around town.
He was just a troublemaker. For instance, this boy, this
(13:40):
little boy, would poop in boxes, wrap them up and
leave them as gifts on people's doorsteps. Yes, sir, it
is trolling in modern parlance. I would call it also
a little bit punk rock, I think, is what I
thought when I first heard of it. It's just anarchy.
(14:00):
He's in church shouting and screaming. He's like, I'm gonna
shit on your doorstep and watch you open.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
He's doing a bunch of things that almost definitely the
opposite of what the preacher's son is supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It's not what the preacher spun is supposed to be doing.
And among those things is he is identifiably queer. He's effeminate,
and by the time he's fifteen, he's kicked out of
the house for being too effeminate. What happens to him
may surprise people who don't know queer history, but he
gets taken in by the owners of a bar called
(14:33):
Annie's TikTok, which was a queer bar.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
It was essentially a queer bar.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like you know, wait, so very queer bars in mac
and Georgia. At this time. I'm just sort of like, oh,
that's a that's not a thing I would have thought about.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Right, But there were.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I mean, the thing is that there was a vibrant
queer scene all over the country, and there always has been.
Wherever there are people, there are queers. Making community is
the lesson here. And at this time, you know, what
that bar was really was a place for performers. And
there were a lot of places like this throughout the South,
these juke joints that where where Southern Black people are
(15:11):
on the edge of society, and on the edge of
Southern Black society, you know, are these people who are
making music and performing and doing drag and being queer.
And so it's not a queer bar and the way
we might think of it today, but it is a
queer bar in the sense of like a lot of
openly transgressive people around gender and sexuality, unapologetically hanging out
(15:33):
in this space. And that's where young Richard starts to
center his life after he gets kicked out of his house.
And I will say, as a consequence, this is a
very important moment in the history of rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Wow. So he basically went to go live what you
found community at this local ba at.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
This queer bar, and it was a place where performers
who pass through. Town was an important town in general
in the history of music. There was a lot of
performance there in the south part of Southern music. So
about a year before he got kicked out of his
home when he was fourteen, he gets kicked out when
he's fifteen. When he's fourteen, he's out on the streets
(16:16):
selling Coca cola right in front of the Macon City
Auditorium and singing while he's selling it, probably to like
jet up sales, right, And one of the performers who's
in town overhears him singing. This is a woman named
Sister Rosetta Tharp.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Have you heard of sis, Sister Rosetta.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
It's okay, I don't know, Yeah yeah, why yeah, tell
me about it.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So Sister Rosetta Tharp.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And this is an important aside is actually, if you
can point to one person who is most clearly credited
with inventing rock and roll, it is this woman. She
was making these nominally gospel records where she introduced electric
guitar and drums and is just belting out these raucous lyrics.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That are nominally about God and stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, but you could picture a whole different set of
lyrics right, and her crowd surfing while she's singing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And the way a musicologist explained it is the idea
is that you starting with her, was that you make
a joyful noise until the spirit enters the room, and
once the Holy Spirit is there, you.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Are rocking and rolling rock and roll. That is the
beginning of rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So here, going back to Little Richard in London in
nineteen seventy two on his press tour, here's how he
describes this idea, the way rock comes out of the church.
This is a different interview than the one with the
guy in the Paisley shirt, but it's also in the BBC.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You said at the beginning of the interview that you
created rock and roll from church music.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That's right. Can you tell me a little bit about that. Yes, Well,
my grandfather was a minister.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
He had a little church down in Georgia and I
used to play the piano every Sunday. You know, it's
give me that all time talking about religion, give me that.
Oh you know, I used to do that every every Sunday.
And so when I started to sing, when I made
to the fruit, to wop oupaul bob loh bamboom tout
the food.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So it was something that the people hadn't been used to.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
And I took my thing that I had made up
in the house and I mixed it with my gospel influence,
not the regular gospel, but my gospel influence and my experience,
my humiliation, my suffering. See, I was rocking all the time,
and then my spirits started rolling, and that's where it
came from.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I was rocking all the time, my spirits started rolling.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I feel like dumb that I've never actually wondered where
the term rock and roll comes from until this moment.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I can't say that it literally comes from this, but
this is how the musicologists talk about it, this is
how these black people who were doing it there. So
I guess I'm going to say, yes, that's where it
came from. But the main point here is rock and
roll is the Holy Spirit entering the room. And so
Sister Rosetta Tharp, who is also queer discovers Little Richard
(19:19):
as an artist playing on the street. She hears him singing.
She's impressed by his powerful voice. She invites him to
open for her show that very night that she meets him. Wow,
and that begins Little Richard's journey as a performer, as
a paid performer.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I literally just want to know that this is legitimately
the plot to A Star is Born? Is it really?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Now that I.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
See they stole something else?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Continue, Continue.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I do wonder how much his beginning to perform at
fourteen with Sister Rosetta Tharp is part of him getting
kicked out of his house at fifteen.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
It's more than just being gay.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
But you know, back to Annie's TikTok, Well, he's hanging
out there, he's been kicked out of his house, he's
performing with Sister Rosetta though Are, and he's meeting all
these performers who are traveling around the South playing really
versions of this music they called jump blues Jump, which
is like.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Jump exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
That's well put, Emmanuel, that's exactly like.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I don't think I have the you know, the musical
depths to tell you about jump blues, but I kind
of hear it as like a combination of blues and swing,
you know, like it's upbeat. It's like boom boom, and
and they're playing this and there's the rock gospel kind
of people, and it's just all of this edge of
culture stuff where they are inventing things, and little teenage
(20:49):
little Richard is hanging out in that circle and he
develops his own drag character called Princess Levan, Princess Princess
Levon because at the time, again, drag is a big
deal in southern black culture. Still, it goes back to
the eighteen hundreds. They're holding these drag balls. He comes
friends with this jump blue singer who is openly gay,
(21:12):
guy named Billy Wright, and he's a famous jump blue
singer and he's also does a lot of drag, and.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
He encourages Richard.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
He's like, yo, you got to lean into this makeup
and the poppador and the gowns really go big with
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And so yeah, yeah, and Richard he loves it, obviously,
and he takes the note.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
In that nineteen seventy two interview that I've been talking about,
there's this moment where he's talking about his family, you know,
and about all his siblings and stuff, and thinking about
his history and making and the host is asking him
a matter of fact out of questions about that, and
it just sends Richard into this tear on style that
(21:54):
I just really love.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Listen to this.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Well, I have a brother, he's a CPA, my sisters,
two sisters, and nurses, yes, and show business.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I'm the only one seacoast. They don't like to dress
like I do. I like to put it on. I
love to put it on. I like to shine.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
In fact, I think everybody's supposed to do their own thing.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
This is what you're called doing your own thing? Time.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Do you always dressed like that?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I go to the grocery store like this and people
turn around. When I walked in the airport here in
London today, a man dropped this cup of coffee.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
I noticed you wearing makeup. Do you wear makeup?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
I do.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Yes, You're supposed to wear makeup, just you know, just
like when your autosia bread, I put sugar in your
coffe You're supposed add a little.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Touch to it. Yes, God supposed to do it.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yes, God, you're supposed to do it. I had a
little touch of makeup to you. That's what the Lord
wanted from you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I love this man.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So by the late forties, young teenage little Richard had
developed his sound, he had developed his style.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He was on stage, he knew he wanted to be
a star, and he was ready, right, he was ready
to be a recording artist.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
His big break does not come though, until nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And I love everything about the story of how this happens.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay, So he's.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Working and making as a dishwasher. He's feeling discouraged and frustrated.
He's thinking, maybe this isn't going to work out.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
He's broke. But he does finally get a break.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
He gets a contract to make a song for a
label called Specialty Records. But at the time, they would
scout artists and then take them into the studio and
develop them.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
See what what can we do?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So they send Richard Pittaman to New Orleans to work
with this renowned development producer, a guy named Robert Bumps Blackwell, right, right,
and who knows right like, we don't have nicknames anymore,
Like we know, we gotta get each other a nick
because Robert Bumps Blackwell is the best nickname ever for
(24:01):
somebody whose job is to create a bump you know.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Like I go to say, that is not where my
mind went in terms of a nickname. Mine went through
a more narcotics related place. But I continue continue well Bumps.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Blackwell was one of these guys who was known for
developing a song to get it from like, Okay, that's
what you sing. Let's make this ready for commercial release, right,
so it could actually be a hit. Right. So he's
working with Little Richard or Richard Pittimante. At the time,
it's not going well. The session is quite lackluster, and
Richard is frustrated. At a lunch break, he sits down
(24:39):
at a piano and he's just fussing around playing one
of his old songs, this filthy, sort of risk a
dirty blues song he used to play in the clubs.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Okay, Blackwell likes it.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Tell me now, in nineteen fifty six, you had a
lot of hits. But before that, what were you doing.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
I was a dishwasher at the Greyhound bus station in
my hometown, Macon, Georgia. I had been washing plates for
so long I was tired, and I wrote to to
Fruity and good Golla, Miss Smilin.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Bless your soul. I got out of the kitchen, and
this is the.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Song that's gonna become tooty fruity that like silly almost
thing you will hear in a kid's song, exactly exactly,
but the original lyrics for too dy fruity, which was
developed in his days playing in queer bars and on
the chip lit circuit. The chorus which we all now
(25:41):
know as two dy fruity, all rudy right, which sounds
like gibberish, but it's actually slang for all right.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
The original lyrics.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Were tooty fruity, good booty because this was a song
about anal sex, Oh yes, sir, and the other lyrics
included if it don't fit, don't force it, you can
grease it, make it easy.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Why really makes some have a different meaning in my
brain now.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
This song it was about anal sex. I tell you
it was a filthy, raunchy song about anal sex.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Bumps.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Blackwell was like, well, that's not gonna work for radio,
but it's a great tune. So they hired another songwriter
that worked for the label to kind of scrub the
lyrics and to make it something they could actually put out.
They recorded the new version in just three takes, so
(26:46):
and it is widely accepted that what they put out
in the world became the first mainstream hit song that
you could call rock and roll tooty fruity, what they
did in that studio. And you know, there is a
version of this story that Little Richard tells in his
interview in nineteen seventies, and it's great because it's just
fun to listen to him talk. It could be a
(27:06):
little hard to follow, but here here is his quick
and dirty version of what I just explained.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
How did you get to record in the first place?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I was down there and I was so tired.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I was tired.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Have you ever seen anybody tied?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I was tied, y'all.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Lord Christ had put out a blues hit called Lord
and Miss Clothing, and he came through my hometown making
Georgia in a golden black Cadillac with a towe on
the back of it. I thought he was gonna roll
it down the street, but he didn't, Oh God, and
he brought came over up to me and he said,
now we're gonna make this tape and send.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
This little tape up here to special directors. I made
the tape, send it on up to Special and it
waited two years before they.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Came to see me.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Bumps Blackwell, they did it. Then they met me down
in New Orleans. Lousannah wanted me to sing like Ray Charles,
and I refused. And when they got down there, he
got to the fruity, although he had to clean it up,
but he.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Got wows catching strays.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
For everybody catches astray when't little Richard starts talking, there's
nobody that doesn't catch.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Astray because nobody could ever compare. So Toty Fruity comes out.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's a huge hit, and it's followed by several other
big hits, long tall Sally, rip it up, Ready Teddy,
and he is a sensation, particularly among white teenagers right,
like they really eat this stuff up. He's playing these
raucous shows, there's integrated audiences. He's doing shit like climbing
(28:32):
on top of the piano and throwing things out at
the fans or you know, screaming crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Like it's just a wild scene that he's creating that
is new and fresh.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And in these nineteen seventy two interviews, like he loves
taking us back to that moment, you know, and he's
asked a lot like and I think maybe because the
interviews from yours maybe perhaps like enjoy him doing this,
you know, but they keep asking him what's rock and roll?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
You oh, just to kind of get him to talk
about it, because they like, we want a little Riches show.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, give us the little Richard show.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
There's one that this is a really great one where
it's it's on this press tour in London.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
We don't actually know who what show this was or
what the interviewer was, but he just like he just
does this riff.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Just listen to this?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Can I ask you a cool question? Which for the
mums who listening to this prokem, they'll want to know
what rock and roll is.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Rock and Roll is the music that heals your spirit,
that lifts your soul and take control and knock out
the headaches because it rocks it out, make the liver
quiver and the bladder splatter and your knees freeze.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's what rock and roll is.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
And don't forget whatever you're doing wherever you go, don't
forget to let it all hang out and keep all
rock and.
Speaker 9 (29:43):
Whoo whoo woo, and they will I've been doing this
a long time, you know. For the black, the white,
the red brin and the yellow. We're just like the linen,
the rose, the sunflower in the medallion where God spoke
the Children's of love. Keep all rocking, baby, little Richard,
the king.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Of rock and roll, Cassius Clean a rock and roll
more hammering that Little Richard.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Honestly, it's funny because as he was talking when he
was like the black for right, the purple and the
yellow or whatever it is that he's saying, like I
was like, oh, it does sound like Muhammad Ali actually.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Absolutely, like this is part of black culture in that era,
you know, like they both grow out of a signifying
culture at a time when we were happy to signify
and wordplay was important, you know, and so they were
two masters of it. And it's other thing about that
is he stays selling in these interviews. You know, he
(30:34):
is trying to sell.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Tickets to his shoes, very much like living to always
be closing lifestyle. Like he's definitely that's right, But there's
a don's happening in these interviews where definitely the interviewers
want Little Richard to put on a show, say stuff
like live a Quiver or a bar, and he's happy
to give it to him because he's trying to remind people, listen,
this is if you're going to get one thing for me,
(30:56):
it's going to be a performance.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
It's going to be a performance at tonight. Let it
all hang out. Come by these tickets, yes, you know,
and watch it happen.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
And I think it's important to take in for a minute, like,
who the audience for all of this was in the
nineteen fifties, right, This was white kids who were eating
this stop flop at a moment when the United States
was deeply, deeply interested in restoring the innocence of white youth.
(31:24):
We had created the suburbs, right, which were explicitly through segregation,
a place where white young people could hide from the
brutality of Jim Crow. That created all their privileges and opportunities.
That was the purpose of the suburbs. And we had
invented the idea of teenagers. This is what blows my mind.
It's so wild to think about how recent that concept is.
(31:48):
Like before World War Two, teenage wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I guess it never thought that ever it You were
just a young person.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, you worked in factories, you worked on farms,
you were you were a laborer by the time you
were a teenager. You were a parent by the time
you were a teenager. And it was really a post
war creation, this of reclaiming of childhood and innocence that
was stolen during the war, right when all these kids
were sent off to die, right, But of course it
was one that was reserved for white people. Like there
(32:20):
were black teenagers, you know, but there were white teenagers
in the suburbs, and they were supposed to be innocent.
And a long comes little frickin' Richard, who is this
clearly gender queer man screaming, you know, like these.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Touty fruity doesn't sound sexual to.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Us now, but I bet you it did then, right,
these sexual things, and he is really an abomination relative
to these innocent white suburbs. And so the record executive
saw this in real time, and they saw the threat
that little Richard presented. I don't really fully understand this.
I think it's because he didn't own the writing credits, right,
(33:07):
The strong had been scrubs, so he didn't own the
bushing credits, I guess, right, And so they had a
bunch of big white artists record Tooty Fruit.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
The classic thing that happened to black ours in that day,
which is basically record a song and then it would
get warded down and kind of lilified on right radio
by another eyes.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, and I and I think this might be the
origin story of that process. But like this is like
a really big example of it. Because does a version
for Tooty Fruity. Pat Boon does a version.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
The version of toy Fruity.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Boon does a version of Too Dy Fruity. Elvis Presley
does a version of Too Dy Fruity. Both are much
larger hits than Little Richard. They both saw way more
copies of that than Little Richard ever sold for his version.
It's part of what sets Elvis on the road to
be the king of rock instead of Richard.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I'm trying to even imagine an Elvis version. What that
sounds like. There's a good rudy you know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
To be honest, I never I didn't even go look
it up, and so little interesting. Now that you say it,
my curiosity stopped at the words Pat boot Els.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But you're right, I don't know what they sound like.
They must be horrible.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I just think it's it's not even just that it
would be horrible. It's just the things that make Tuty fruity,
like a fun tune to listen to. Like literally, just
the hind notes that Little Richard is hitting. Elvis's whole
thing is the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Physically, he can't sing that way.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, he's a voice in the basement, So it's
not it doesn't work the same.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
But I'm here to.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Tell you that at the time, they sold way more
versions of this record than Little Richard ever did.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And his reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Is what I want to talk about next, because when
I listened to his these interviews in nineteen seventy two,
despite all the bluster and salesmanship about the concert, you
can also hear his just frustration and anger and pain.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
All these years later. Yeah, you know, at the way
this erasure began.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
Little Richard knows that he is a hell of an
entertainer today for these kids, because if he wasn't, Mick Jagger,
Queen's clear Water Revival, the Beatles, Tom Jones, Elvis Presley
and all these people wouldn't have made it with a
Little Richard's tune. This Little Richard wasn't what he is,
but they won't choose to feel that you are nothing.
But I know that I'm great, the greatest, Thank.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
God, bes that's gonna be so. And I'm just listening
to that and just thinking about the performance that he's doing,
Like he's going around town trying to whip up like
ticket sales. He's having to like kind of dance for
them and do the be the little Richard, the most flamboyant,
(36:04):
almost probably doing a little bit of a parody of himself.
It sounds like, whilst also at the same time there's
truth behind it, which is you're literally kind of trying
to defend and remind people of your legacy. That's got
a take. Yeah, that's going to take a lot.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It keeps happening. Yeah, he's constantly.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Being like, oh wooo, I'm Little Richard, and then like
the defensiveness comes up, you know, right, and he feels hurt.
But you know, I also want to talk about like
how he reacted to it and the real time and
how he might have kind of helped make it worse
for himself.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
So that's next.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Welcome Back. It's Big Lives. We're talking about Little Richard
and now we're talking about how he reacted to the
fact that Elvis Presley and these other white artists who
immediately copied his song in Tooty Fruity also immediately started
getting the credit for creating the sound of roll.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Right. So, nineteen fifty seven, he's at the height of
his fame.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's two years after Touty Fruity has come out and
all those other hits have come out. He's touring Australia
and while he's performing, he looks up into the sky
and he sees a bright red fireball. Now, what he
was actually looking at was the Sputnik one satellite.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Okay, I was like he was looking at the sun.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
He was looking at the.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sputnik one s But what Little Richard decided he was
looking at was God. And he decided that it was
a divine sign from God that it was time for
him to repent his wild lifestyle. And reportedly he went
(38:03):
to the Sydney Harbor. He took off his jewelry, these
expensive diamond ring he threw them into the harbor. He
quit the tour, abandoned the tour, and publicly declared that
he was leaving the devil music.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Behind, leaving the devil music behind yeah, as in.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
It, all of it, it's the devil's music. He doesn't
want anything else to do with it. He's going to
go be a minister.
Speaker 9 (38:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah. So in nineteen seventy two, again back in London,
the host.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Of this late night show asks him about this, and
here's how he describes it.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
In I seven fifty eight, you retired, Yes, I did,
and what did you do?
Speaker 8 (38:45):
Then?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
I went to study religion, the Jewish religion, you know,
from sundown fled to nine Saturday Sabbath and you know
the Passover feasts and all and my people in the.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
You know they keep the Sabbath seven days Sabbath Jewish
my family, Yes, And so I went.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
To school there and I studied theology.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
And so after I came out of it, I didn't
go into it. I wanted to come back and sing
for my fans and my friends. I never leave my
fans and my friends again because they need me and
I need them. We help each other so much.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Why did you drop out to the first place when
you were well?
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Because I would study and learn about you know, about
the love of God and that the black and white,
the red, brown and the yellow with just like the lily,
the rose, the sunflower, and the medallions where God's boquet
the children's of love and I just want to learn
about the love of God so we can learn how
to help and treat each other.
Speaker 6 (39:37):
There was a story that you threw eight thousand pounds
worth of rings over Cindy helper Bridge did that?
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Would like to find that fish that got them?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I got to say, first off, little Richard is not
a reliable narrator. And I have no idea what he's
talking about. With the Judaism piece of it. You know,
he was an evangelical Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh so he didn't. He didn't study Judaism and become jurids.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
He did, he did, he went to seminary to disturb
study evangelous talk.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Oh he went.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Maybe there's some other part of it. I don't know,
but he is famously an.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Unreliable Maybe he's just like an Old Testament Christian.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
You know, like maybe that's what he meant.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I do not know, but it is the case that
from nineteen fifty eight forward he would spend the rest
of his life coming in and out of being.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
This flamboyant, rebellious boy that became a rock star and
being an evangelical Christian who rejects everything about his prior life.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Despite what he.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Said in that interview he had rejected those songs. He
had said, this is the devil's music. I don't have
anything to do with those songs. Tooty Fruity in particular,
it's sexual and I don't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
It's so interesting that that. I mean, on the one hand,
it makes sense that it's a person who grew up
in the church, and it makes sense that he would
go back to the church in a safe space, even
though it doesn't sound like it was potentially that much
of a safe space when he was a kid. He
was intention with it blighty. But I don't know, it's
so interesting to me. The takeaway he has from someone
(41:14):
stealing his music isn't to be like, oh, this business
sucks or these white people suck. It's to be like, literally,
the music itself is devil music. Or maybe that's not
mutually explosive. Maybe it's all just like this whole business
is dirty and horrible, or what.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I hear him saying is that I suck, that I
am the devil, and that's why I haven't prospered in
this space is because I little Richard, this queer, rambunctious person,
am sinful in my core.
Speaker 8 (41:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's almost like because Elvis stealing his music, he sees
it as, oh, this is God punishing me.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That's what I hear.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Because he never really fully claims his sexuality ever in
his life publicly, right, despite all this.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Stuff we know, like the original song to the Trudy
being about, it's like he's not he will now no.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Well, and I think not to himself. Maybe in some ways,
you know, like in the way that we think of
it today. He wasn't proud.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
He got married in nineteen fifty ninety, married a woman
named Ernestine Harvin who he meets while at like an
evangelical rally.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
They make music together. They make a song, an album,
a gospel album with Chrissy Jones. Actually okay, nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Like I said, he rejected that old music at one point.
He gets kind of anti gay. Later in his life
and his Christianity, he creates this traveling evangelical team that
travels around the country preaching, you know, but he also
can't hold it right then. He keeps coming back to
the music, so like in the early sixties. So he
(42:55):
leaves in fifty eight, early sixties as the sound starts
to take over, particularly in the UK with the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
He comes back right and he starts mentoring them and
Jimmy Hendricks and so forth. And in these interviews in
the seventies, you know, like he wants to talk about that,
he wants to talk about his time back and what
that meant to him, but that didn't hold. He ends
up going away again, and he just does this throughout
the rest of his life, like coming in and out
of the music and coming in and out of being
(43:24):
like I'm a Christian versus I'm a rock and roll star.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
It's sad because it's like, on the one hand, what
you're telling me is this story about this guy whose
whole genre doesn't seem to want to claim him fully
or claims him when it's convenient for them. But it
also seems like he didn't want to claim himself, you
know what I mean. He's yeah too.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
It's really tragic, and it's unfortunately a sadly common gay story.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
But so in the seventies, you.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Know, when we're hearing this interview, it's one of we're
hearing these interviews from the BBC. It's one of his
times where he's like tried to come back, so you know,
he's there.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Selling this concert.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And one of the things that's weird listening to the
tape of this is how he talks about the white
people who have become right and roll stars.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Beautiful. Yeah, hello, Cliff Richards, I still love you. He's
all right.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
He wants to simultaneously claim them as friends, but.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
He does keep showing his hurt.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You just keep hearing him be defensive about it and
then about being forgotten like this.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And now they don't label at everything.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
They call it accid rock, anything from giving you the credit,
you know, they call it folk rock, a country rock,
anything to keep from saying rock and roll with little
Richard made.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
And there's this other thing that keeps coming up in
the interviews in seventy two because he's mad about the
way the concert has been organized and marketed.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
So what it is is it's actually a festival of
rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Also, it's not even just his comeback concert. It's a
bunch of people.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, you know, it's like Bill Haley and Jerry Lee,
Lewis and Bo Didley.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
You know, like it's an old.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Days like all the like rock and roll pioneers of
yester year.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah yeah, like Coachella of your yesteryear rock and roll
right right. But as the show culminates, the way it's
set up is first it's Little Richard and then it's
Chuck Berry as the closer.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Oh so he tools the end. He's a big name,
but he's not the biggest name. Literally, that's right.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Little Richard thinks he should be the headliner, right, and
he is very very upset that they have instead sold
it as Chuck Berry with the headliner here. He is,
like really talking about this on the nineteen seventy two
Late night Show.
Speaker 6 (45:54):
I understand has been a little friction between who is
going to be on the top of the bill. You're
Chuck Berry.
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Oh, I'm going to fix him.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
I am going to fix him.
Speaker 6 (46:04):
I said, he is my.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Friend, but I'm gonna fix him. They made him the
star of the thing, and I'm my contract says that
I was the star. I am gonna fix him. The
Chuck Berry. I call him BlackBerry. My mama used to
make BlackBerry wine. I am gonna fix Chuck Berry. I
am gonna upset his nerve and let him know that
I am the king of rock and roll, the undisputed king,
(46:27):
and can't nothing take my throne. I am gonna show
him that he is from the valley and not from
the mountain. Chuck Berry know that I was a star
benist all my life. He can't close no show behind me.
I can't even have the nerve the audacity to walk on.
I'm little retchet Chuck Berry.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
They built him over me all these years, twenty three
years in show business. I am the creator, the originator
of the massurpator.
Speaker 5 (46:49):
I am the one, and I will you come out.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
I'm gonna fix Chuck Berry. This BlackBerry would.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Be mashed a you gonna fix him.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
I am gonna shake his nerve.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
He can close the show, but when I get to
it's gonna be closed anyhow.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And that's the truth, see.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Right, Like you hear in his voices like a change
where it's like he's off joking half and then you
know he's dead series like twenty three years. Yeah, so
like obviously little Richards not getting the credit for rock
and roll? Were people getting it to Chuck Berry?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Sure, everybody belt Elvis, Presley, Chuck Berry, all these people,
the Beatles, you know, the Stones, anybody but little Richard.
And some of that was the whitewashing that happened right
at the beginning. And some of that is because Little Richard,
in hating himself, took himself out.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Of the taper. He stepped away.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
He stepped away, and.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
He kept doing it when he came back in the sixties,
and that could have been a time, but then he
stepped away again. And now he's back in the early
seventies and he's trying to reclaim it. And I mean
throughout every one of these interviews in seventy two where
he's selling this concert, this happens, you know, where he's
performing and performing.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
In all that fun tape that we heard, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
And then like the other people who were thought of
by that point as the titans of rock and roll
come up and he claims them they're my friends. I
like them, and I think they probably were, you know,
like they didn't reject him, you know. And then it
turns where you hear this real bitterness and frustration, which.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
To be clear, I get, I would be hot, you
wouldn't be able to be out there right.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
So he does the show the following night after that
interview is the next night of that concert.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
How Great I Feel Love is? How does it go? Well?
Speaker 2 (48:38):
You know, Chuck Berry does in fact act as the headliner. Okay,
the crowd does not leave after Little Richard.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Does his opening set, and it's just kind of a.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Bus a bust in way like performance. Isn't that great?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah? I mean I haven't seen it, but apparently the
performance was uneven and at one point he stopped singing.
There was some hiccups, and there was a concert film
that came after it, and that was well received. It
it's sort of been edited and you know, and apparently
like he did better in that. But this was supposed
(49:14):
to be his reclaiming of the throne, and that is
not what happened in that concert. Right.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
So he does this for a little bit longer, and.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Then by nineteen seventy sevent he quits again and he
returns to evangelism. He sells bibles, and it's not till
the late eighties when they create the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and that he starts to be recognized
as this titan that he was. He gets the lifetime
(49:44):
achievement awarded the Grammys in ninety three, that kind of thing.
But I think he was lost to history as the
just anarchic cultural disruption that he was. He changed the
course of the twentieth century with what he brought, and
even when we call him the King of rock and roll,
(50:06):
I don't think that's how we remember him. Yeah, And
he died in twenty twenty at the age of eighty
seven from bone cancer.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Wait, he only died in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I mean, I don't think that I really internalized that
because and then that's the thing. Honestly, it's like, this
whole time I've been talking about him, it's like he's
kind of cast an Amber in the fifties and sixties,
but it's tooty fruity when you listen to it, and
that music sounds like so of the period where it's
sort of like, I know it before Motown, but it
almost in some of its ways sounds kind of like
(50:39):
pre Way Child's even though it's not.
Speaker 8 (50:41):
So.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
I don't know if that's kind of why he was
only he was only eighty seven and twenty twenty, which
means he spent most of his life, most of his
adult life actually in this kind of musical limbo and exile.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean he was a teenager when he
was fourteen when he first found the music, and he
was very young when Tody w in the fifties and
he lost it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
And you know, it's also like he continues to pop
up in the culture. One of my favorite things I
encourage everybody to go you uh is to if you
aren't someone who has already watched Pee Wee Herman's.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Christmas Special from the late eighties, right, which is we
ought to do an episode on that alone.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
It is one of the greatest pieces of what cultural
relics of our of history. It's jammed backed with just
absurd celebrities showing up on Pee Wee Herman's at Pee
Wee's Playhouse for Christmas, and Little Richard is.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
One of them.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
There's this cutaway scene where he's out being Little Richard
i Ice skating around and it was I remember being like, oh,
who's that guy when I was a kid and saw that.
But he pops up in these weird ways in the culture,
but he just he's never he's never.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Back in the mainstream. After really after the after the fifties.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Wow, that's wild. When I think about some of these careers,
it's like music is at the time that he was making,
music is changing so quickly. You've gone from like jazz
to swing to beavop to blues to jump blues to
our rock and roll whatever in a short period of time.
But there are people in his contemporary world who are
(52:21):
trying to move along with those like and he just
never did that. Like, there's not like a little Richard
random attempt at a more poppy album or something, right.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
He doesn't come in and figure out how to how
to introduce synth, right, There's there's none of that for
a little Richard.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
He just goes to God and curls up in a
ball of self hate.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And here's the other thing. All these people that he
taught and helped, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or
these people when he's doing that tour in the seventies,
are they kind of coming out and like, right, we're
advocating for him, Like what's yeah? Watch their relationship with I.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Like, I don't know that there's any relationship with them,
but it is a good point where have yelled been
all these people who grew out of him, you know.
I mean I think part of what got him reacknowledged
as the king of rock and roll when it finally
happened was, in fact, all of these rock stars who say, yeah,
I little Richard is the is.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
The big bang of this music. But in real time
were they with him? I don't know, that's a good question.
Where were you all? But you know, would he allow
them to be around too? I just don't know.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
I feel like we've talked about Little Richard in so
far is like, right, he's trying to get recognition from
that white suburban teenager crowd who grew up and became adults.
How did black people view Little Richard?
Speaker 2 (53:46):
I mean it was these were integrated audiences, so I
think black people walk the same path then everybody else,
kind of being introduced to this music, loving it, being
ready for more of it, and wondering where he went,
you know. I mean the counterfaction was what would have
happened had he kept performing right, you know, and that
(54:06):
we just don't he kept going and kept making music,
what would have happened? Would he have developed the black
audience that kept him safe? Would he become part of motown?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
We just don't know.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, we just won't know.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
So that is the story of Little Richard. Thank you
for going on that journey.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
For me, Thanks for taking me on.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
You got for me next week?
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Okay, so next I'm going to pay you a couple
of clips. Here, I'm gonna I'll just play you the
first one.
Speaker 8 (54:31):
And soap operas you're required to feel big.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
And feel big often.
Speaker 8 (54:36):
It's very frustrating too, because you're working with writing that's
not necessarily fantastic, and you're working in a medium that's
all about speaking your subtext, which is as an actor,
very a very very heinous thing to do.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I have no idea who that is, and it does.
It's soap opera, Like, yeah, are we going to talk
about a soap star?
Speaker 1 (54:58):
We're definitely going to talk about a star, and we're
definitely going to talk about a person who's inhabited so
many different walls that I didn't even know about. I'm
gonna play you another clip.
Speaker 8 (55:06):
It's a very old fashioned movie. It's a movie that's
kind of about love in the movies as opposed to
love in life. You know, it's a very like you're saying,
a very sentimental movie and very very sweet, hugely sweet.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Nope, nothing nothing, She's a white lady, important, important Who
this woman is? Oh what more?
Speaker 6 (55:27):
Harry met Sally. Of course, it's this famous orgasm scene.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Are you?
Speaker 6 (55:31):
Are you very sick of it being referred?
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Okay, no, no, got it.
Speaker 6 (55:36):
I was just telling somebody.
Speaker 8 (55:37):
What I remember was that Rob Reiner, the director, had
a habit of in every scene standing next to the
camera and kind of mouthing the words along with you.
So he did that in that scene as well.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
Rip Rob Reiner. Yeah, I literally know nothing about this person.
All right, I know it is, but I know zero
beyond Harry met Sally about this person.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
So well, we'll get into it next time.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries.
It's hosted by me Kay Wright and Emmanuel Joji from
BBC Studios. Our producer is Emma Weatheroll. Our archive producer
is Samira Chowdry. Executive producer is Annie Brown. The sound
designer is Melvin Rickapee, Production coordinator is Galen Davis Connolly,
(56:27):
and production manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Our apprentice is Amy Woods from Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Our executive producer is Constanza Guyato, producer Daphne Chen, legal
advisor Jake Flanagan, and marketing by Morgan Ratner and Jordan
mc millen.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
One small thing before we get started. If you've been
enjoying Big Lives, it would mean a lot if you
left us a review wherever you listen. It's how new
people find us. And this show runs on word of mouth.
And if someone in your life is obsessed with David Bowie,
Amy Winehouse or any of the legends we've covered, are
just with the messy, complicated truth of how icons are made,
(00:40):
send them this episode, Oh thank you or well, they
may have a lot of thoughts. Either way, you'll have
a good conversation with them about it and it'll be great.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
So Okay, here we.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Go from BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
This is Big Lives.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm Kyrie, and on this show we take a single
cultural icon and break down their life and their impact
using the BBC Archives and emmanual. Today we are talking
about the one and only Little Richard.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Okay, I'm so excited about this because I know so
little about this man and I feel like I should
know more about this man.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Well, when is your kind of stock image of him?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Honestly, my stock image of him is obvious, just very
like everlescent, super charismatic performer, someone who I don't know
how to say. I don't know if it's because of
like one of his most famous songs, Touty Fruity, but
I just think of a very out there with like
a bunch of like makeup and like his head one
up in a silk scarf. It's like a total character.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Your stock image is exactly correct, and it's a man
like this song Boom, like I remember sicking that as
(02:07):
a little kid. Yeah, So that's the other thing I
would say, at this stage in history, he's probably like
the kind of thing you play at a kid's party, right, sure, well,
all right, so lay down the basics of Little Richard.
You know, this is despite being somebody who plays at
kids parties now or who you would play at a
kid's party now, is in fact one of, if not
(02:27):
the most crucial architect of rock and roll. First with
that song Touty Free released in their late fifties, followed
up with stuff like long tas Sally and rip it
Up you Know on Saturday Night.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Just Got Paid is one of the lyrics and rip
it Up.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
He has this really distinctive style that you are familiar with,
big boufont hair, the pancake makeup, is really important. Like
you weren't supposed to miss the makeup you We're supposed
to see him in his bay cake makeup, flamboyant costumes,
all of it, and actually he little Richard. I think
(03:02):
it's the best person to introduce Little Richard. So let
me just play you a little clip from what he
did during.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
A BBC interview.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
I've found in nineteen seventy two that the interviewer is
trying to talk to him and he just interrupts him.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Can I say something? Let it all hang out?
Speaker 4 (03:19):
You don't pull a Little Richard from Donald Macon Georgia.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I am the king of rock and roll. Oh oh my,
my mama.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
I just had to do that, and now I feel
so much better.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I got it out.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Wow Wow. He's like one pop preacher, one pop just
flamboyant diva.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Basically all of this is gonna be relevant those you
are using all the right words ever, vested, charismatic preacher,
flamboyant diva, like probably the best five words to describe
Little Richard. Uh So that that clip is him in
a nutshell. And like I said today, it is uncontroversial
to say that he was the king of rock and roll.
(03:58):
Like countless rock and roll legends have followed. His sound
is starting with Elvis Presley, you know, and they acknowledged
it at one point.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
I was surprised, Leer, I don't know if you knew
this man.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He was mentoring the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at
one point actively actively. Yeah, they were like turning to
him for help. Paul McCartney apparently has I don't I'm
not much a Beatles fan. I'm gonna be honest, sacrilegrig No,
I don't want to start no stuff. I'm just saying like,
it's not really it wasn't part of my listening anything,
(04:32):
I guess, but is there. I mean, if you are
a listener, there's this, I guess. Paul McCartney does a
woo himself. Uh right, it does do that he learned
from Little.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Richard and wait wait wait he like stole it from
the Little Richard or then you're saying actively just like
how to do.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Little Richard taught it to it?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Whoa yes, okay, okay, because.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
He was actively mentoring the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Jimmy Hendricks played back up for Little Richard at one
point early in his career, but they were too big
of personalities to be on the stage together. So they
did have quite a bit of conflict and that did last.
But the point of all that, I'm here to tell
you that it is a fact at this point that
rock and roll began in southern black and frankly mostly
(05:19):
queer juke joints, that in the early twentieth century, where
this kid, Richard Penniman, found it, developed it, and ultimately
took it to the mainstream in nineteen fifties. And that
is the history of rock and roll. But for many,
many years, no one acknowledged that fact, even as when
(05:39):
I encountered him when I was a kid, you know,
in the eighties, he was still at that point considered
a flash in the pan.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Like I was going to say, like as like I
had my music education as a kid in like the
early two thousands, and yeah, he's almost like this guy
but shows up for a little bit, almost to some
sort of like musical prophet emon disappears.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, or a comedic blip, you know, like he never
ever had the commercial success of the white artists who
followed him. And a few years ago, so I had
the chance to interview a filmmaker woman named Lisa Cortez,
who made this incredible documentary for HBO.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
About Little Richard. Little Richard, I Am everything. It's called.
Everybody should go look at it.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And I learned in talking to her how intentional that
erasure was, how he got left out for so many
years of the history of rock and roll, it's starting
in real time, because he was really a threat to
white culture in the fifties. I also learned how as
a consequence of that eraser, he really was hurt.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
After that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
This was this man who had just been so full
of joy and inspiration and revolution, he struggled to embrace
any of those things about himself.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And so I was thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Challenging arc of Little Richard's story when I started looking
around in the BBC archives for stuff about him, because
I'm into him, and I found a couple of really
remarkable interviews he did with the BBC in August of
nineteen seventy two. These were recorded in just a really
pivotal moment in his life story, and I think if
(07:22):
we listen to them together, you can start to understand
both the incredible.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Inspiration of this man and the horrible tragedy of this man.
So that's what I want to do. I want to
listen to these two interviews with you.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You down, I listen. Let it all hang out, my friend,
Let's do it all.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Right, Let's start after the break. Welcome back. It's Big Lives.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We're talking about Little Richard and okay, Emmanuel, let me
set up what's happening for a Little Richard in August
of nineteen seventy two as he sits for an interview
with the BBC. He's in London for a big concert
at Wimbley Stadium. And you know, he's been in and
out of the limelight sort of off and on since
the fifties.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
He got really big in the late fifties, and he's
just sort of been coming in and out of public conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And he personally sees this show that he's going to
be doing in London as a chance to like reassert
his status as the king of rock and roll.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's sort of like his big sort of redemption tool.
And it's in the UK, home of rock and roll
in that eight by the seventies. That's why rock and
roll is coming out.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Of right where all these people that he has taught
rock and roll have come and so he's back to
claim his status atop the mountain, and he's pushing ticket
sales right, So he's doing interviews and the night before
the concert he goes on this late night BBC show
and it's it is a time capsule. I mean, the
background is warmly lit in tan colors. There's a soft glow,
(09:04):
very early seventies. The interviewer is this scrawny British white
guy in a Paisley shirt and he's kind of awkward.
He's leaning on this big grand piano and Little Richard
is sitting at the keys, looking every bit the epic
diva that he is, you know, the diamond headband and
(09:25):
the big boufond hair, the makeup. He's got this flowing,
flared peacher maybe it's kind of pinkish two piece, yeah,
with like big square rhinestones on it.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
He's just doing it all. And the show begins. He
starts playing right, and he's.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Riffing, and the camera's there, you know, and right from
the jump here though, the interviewer starts like trying to
talk to real Richard like he's a has been right,
like where's he been?
Speaker 5 (10:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But Little Richard is here to insist I've gone nowhere.
I am still the king.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
Little rich It's now sixteen year Senor had your first hits.
Still realize that when you must have realized that to
your performances. Now they are people who weren't even alive
when you first began recording.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yes, but I have woke him up.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
Now, everybody that wasn't alive when I started and was gone,
I have brought the spirit and put it on them.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
They have resurrected. So this is like the vibe of
all of.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
His interviews in this period, right, and this in every
way he goes. He's just being casually disrespected like that.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
And he's being like, I'm here, I'm the king, I've
been the king.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
I woke him up.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
He's like simultaneously like uh, celebratory and defensive, you know,
at the same time. And he's got these two things coming.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's trying to be like, I never went anywhere, but
I'm offended that you think I went somewhere, you know.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
So that's generally the vibe.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
H And at one point in this interview, the interviewer asks,
you know, little rich Or, just the basics of how
he got started.
Speaker 6 (11:12):
How did you develop your piccular style, your resonant voice.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Well, uh, you know, I used to be an opera singer.
I used to sing opera. You didn't know that I'd
ask the music.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I didn't know that. I'm sorry.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
Then I started singing rock. I was playing for the church.
My grandfather was a preacher, ravin Pennaman.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
He died.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
I used to play for him every Sunday morning because
he was taking up collections about seven times. You know,
just one more penny, just one more quarter and more
you give me to steal one of another one.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
So I used to play two of the fruit in
long tall salad. Why he'd be preaching, but he didn't
know what.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So let me try to translate some of this, because first,
I'm not even sure that he ever sang opera.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
I'm gonna say that's the myth making happening here. It
might be.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I can't say he didn't, but he does the most.
Anytime he talks about himself, he calls it. You know,
he Muhammad Ali of music, as he has said. So
you know he's saying a lot in that clip. It
must be unpacked. This is the short story of rock
and roll. I guess kind of in there which passes
through opera and in this particular telling, I don't know
if that's true.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
He does the most and who.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You never corrected Beaver in their stories?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Oh, I think I've heard that somewhere as well. All right, well,
I'm not going to correct Richard.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Pittaman, but let me tell you what happened in his life.
Richard Binnaman born in Making, Georgia, nineteen thirty two. As
he says, his grandfather was a preacher. He grew up
in church where.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
He played music, and this music deeply influenced him.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It was, you know, the raucous sound of music in
Pentecostal and Baptist churches in the South in the thirties, right,
Like you have a sense of what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
But within that little Richard was truly a wild child.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
He was nicknamed Warhawk the point because, yeah, because he
would interrupt the service trying to sing with his He
would just be screaming.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
At hollar.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And so they had to like stop him from singing
in church at one point. And then when I spoke
to the filmmaker Lisa Cortez who made this documentary about him,
that I love. She told me a detail about his
childhood that she, for some bizarre reason, left out of
her documentary. But he liked to play pranks around town.
He was just a troublemaker. For instance, this boy, this
(13:40):
little boy, would poop in boxes, wrap them up and
leave them as gifts on people's doorsteps. Yes, sir, it
is trolling in modern parlance. I would call it also
a little bit punk rock, I think, is what I
thought when I first heard of it. It's just anarchy.
(14:00):
He's in church shouting and screaming. He's like, I'm gonna
shit on your doorstep and watch you open.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
He's doing a bunch of things that almost definitely the
opposite of what the preacher's son is supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
It's not what the preacher spun is supposed to be doing.
And among those things is he is identifiably queer. He's effeminate,
and by the time he's fifteen, he's kicked out of
the house for being too effeminate. What happens to him
may surprise people who don't know queer history, but he
gets taken in by the owners of a bar called
(14:33):
Annie's TikTok, which was a queer bar.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
It was essentially a queer bar.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Like you know, wait, so very queer bars in mac
and Georgia. At this time. I'm just sort of like, oh,
that's a that's not a thing I would have thought about.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Right, But there were.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I mean, the thing is that there was a vibrant
queer scene all over the country, and there always has been.
Wherever there are people, there are queers. Making community is
the lesson here. And at this time, you know, what
that bar was really was a place for performers. And
there were a lot of places like this throughout the South,
these juke joints that where where Southern Black people are
(15:11):
on the edge of society, and on the edge of
Southern Black society, you know, are these people who are
making music and performing and doing drag and being queer.
And so it's not a queer bar and the way
we might think of it today, but it is a
queer bar in the sense of like a lot of
openly transgressive people around gender and sexuality, unapologetically hanging out
(15:33):
in this space. And that's where young Richard starts to
center his life after he gets kicked out of his house.
And I will say, as a consequence, this is a
very important moment in the history of rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Wow. So he basically went to go live what you
found community at this local ba at.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
This queer bar, and it was a place where performers
who pass through. Town was an important town in general
in the history of music. There was a lot of
performance there in the south part of Southern music. So
about a year before he got kicked out of his
home when he was fourteen, he gets kicked out when
he's fifteen. When he's fourteen, he's out on the streets
(16:16):
selling Coca cola right in front of the Macon City
Auditorium and singing while he's selling it, probably to like
jet up sales, right, And one of the performers who's
in town overhears him singing. This is a woman named
Sister Rosetta Tharp.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Have you heard of sis, Sister Rosetta.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
It's okay, I don't know, Yeah yeah, why yeah, tell
me about it.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So Sister Rosetta Tharp.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
And this is an important aside is actually, if you
can point to one person who is most clearly credited
with inventing rock and roll, it is this woman. She
was making these nominally gospel records where she introduced electric
guitar and drums and is just belting out these raucous lyrics.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
That are nominally about God and stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, but you could picture a whole different set of
lyrics right, and her crowd surfing while she's singing.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
It's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
And the way a musicologist explained it is the idea
is that you starting with her, was that you make
a joyful noise until the spirit enters the room, and
once the Holy Spirit is there, you.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Are rocking and rolling rock and roll. That is the
beginning of rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So here, going back to Little Richard in London in
nineteen seventy two on his press tour, here's how he
describes this idea, the way rock comes out of the church.
This is a different interview than the one with the
guy in the Paisley shirt, but it's also in the BBC.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
You said at the beginning of the interview that you
created rock and roll from church music.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That's right. Can you tell me a little bit about that. Yes, Well,
my grandfather was a minister.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
He had a little church down in Georgia and I
used to play the piano every Sunday. You know, it's
give me that all time talking about religion, give me that.
Oh you know, I used to do that every every Sunday.
And so when I started to sing, when I made
to the fruit, to wop oupaul bob loh bamboom tout
the food.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
So it was something that the people hadn't been used to.
Speaker 5 (18:27):
And I took my thing that I had made up
in the house and I mixed it with my gospel influence,
not the regular gospel, but my gospel influence and my experience,
my humiliation, my suffering. See, I was rocking all the time,
and then my spirits started rolling, and that's where it
came from.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I was rocking all the time, my spirits started rolling.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I feel like dumb that I've never actually wondered where
the term rock and roll comes from until this moment.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
I can't say that it literally comes from this, but
this is how the musicologists talk about it, this is
how these black people who were doing it there. So
I guess I'm going to say, yes, that's where it
came from. But the main point here is rock and
roll is the Holy Spirit entering the room. And so
Sister Rosetta Tharp, who is also queer discovers Little Richard
(19:19):
as an artist playing on the street. She hears him singing.
She's impressed by his powerful voice. She invites him to
open for her show that very night that she meets him. Wow,
and that begins Little Richard's journey as a performer, as
a paid performer.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I literally just want to know that this is legitimately
the plot to A Star is Born? Is it really?
Speaker 3 (19:41):
That's right?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Now that I.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
See they stole something else?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Continue, Continue.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I do wonder how much his beginning to perform at
fourteen with Sister Rosetta Tharp is part of him getting
kicked out of his house at fifteen.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
It's more than just being gay.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
But you know, back to Annie's TikTok, Well, he's hanging
out there, he's been kicked out of his house, he's
performing with Sister Rosetta though Are, and he's meeting all
these performers who are traveling around the South playing really
versions of this music they called jump blues Jump, which
is like.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Jump exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
That's well put, Emmanuel, that's exactly like.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I don't think I have the you know, the musical
depths to tell you about jump blues, but I kind
of hear it as like a combination of blues and swing,
you know, like it's upbeat. It's like boom boom, and
and they're playing this and there's the rock gospel kind
of people, and it's just all of this edge of
culture stuff where they are inventing things, and little teenage
(20:49):
little Richard is hanging out in that circle and he
develops his own drag character called Princess Levan, Princess Princess
Levon because at the time, again, drag is a big
deal in southern black culture. Still, it goes back to
the eighteen hundreds. They're holding these drag balls. He comes
friends with this jump blue singer who is openly gay,
(21:12):
guy named Billy Wright, and he's a famous jump blue
singer and he's also does a lot of drag, and.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
He encourages Richard.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
He's like, yo, you got to lean into this makeup
and the poppador and the gowns really go big with
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And so yeah, yeah, and Richard he loves it, obviously,
and he takes the note.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
In that nineteen seventy two interview that I've been talking about,
there's this moment where he's talking about his family, you know,
and about all his siblings and stuff, and thinking about
his history and making and the host is asking him
a matter of fact out of questions about that, and
it just sends Richard into this tear on style that
(21:54):
I just really love.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Listen to this.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Well, I have a brother, he's a CPA, my sisters,
two sisters, and nurses, yes, and show business.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
I'm the only one seacoast. They don't like to dress
like I do. I like to put it on. I
love to put it on. I like to shine.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
In fact, I think everybody's supposed to do their own thing.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
This is what you're called doing your own thing? Time.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Do you always dressed like that?
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I go to the grocery store like this and people
turn around. When I walked in the airport here in
London today, a man dropped this cup of coffee.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
I noticed you wearing makeup. Do you wear makeup?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
I do.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
Yes, You're supposed to wear makeup, just you know, just
like when your autosia bread, I put sugar in your
coffe You're supposed add a little.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Touch to it. Yes, God supposed to do it.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yes, God, you're supposed to do it. I had a
little touch of makeup to you. That's what the Lord
wanted from you.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I love this man.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
So by the late forties, young teenage little Richard had
developed his sound, he had developed his style.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
He was on stage, he knew he wanted to be
a star, and he was ready, right, he was ready
to be a recording artist.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
His big break does not come though, until nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And I love everything about the story of how this happens.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Okay, So he's.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Working and making as a dishwasher. He's feeling discouraged and frustrated.
He's thinking, maybe this isn't going to work out.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
He's broke. But he does finally get a break.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
He gets a contract to make a song for a
label called Specialty Records. But at the time, they would
scout artists and then take them into the studio and
develop them.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
See what what can we do?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So they send Richard Pittaman to New Orleans to work
with this renowned development producer, a guy named Robert Bumps Blackwell, right, right,
and who knows right like, we don't have nicknames anymore,
Like we know, we gotta get each other a nick
because Robert Bumps Blackwell is the best nickname ever for
(24:01):
somebody whose job is to create a bump you know.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Like I go to say, that is not where my
mind went in terms of a nickname. Mine went through
a more narcotics related place. But I continue continue well Bumps.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Blackwell was one of these guys who was known for
developing a song to get it from like, Okay, that's
what you sing. Let's make this ready for commercial release, right,
so it could actually be a hit. Right. So he's
working with Little Richard or Richard Pittimante. At the time,
it's not going well. The session is quite lackluster, and
Richard is frustrated. At a lunch break, he sits down
(24:39):
at a piano and he's just fussing around playing one
of his old songs, this filthy, sort of risk a
dirty blues song he used to play in the clubs.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Okay, Blackwell likes it.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Tell me now, in nineteen fifty six, you had a
lot of hits. But before that, what were you doing.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
I was a dishwasher at the Greyhound bus station in
my hometown, Macon, Georgia. I had been washing plates for
so long I was tired, and I wrote to to
Fruity and good Golla, Miss Smilin.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Bless your soul. I got out of the kitchen, and
this is the.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Song that's gonna become tooty fruity that like silly almost
thing you will hear in a kid's song, exactly exactly,
but the original lyrics for too dy fruity, which was
developed in his days playing in queer bars and on
the chip lit circuit. The chorus which we all now
(25:41):
know as two dy fruity, all rudy right, which sounds
like gibberish, but it's actually slang for all right.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
The original lyrics.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Were tooty fruity, good booty because this was a song
about anal sex, Oh yes, sir, and the other lyrics
included if it don't fit, don't force it, you can
grease it, make it easy.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Why really makes some have a different meaning in my
brain now.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
This song it was about anal sex. I tell you
it was a filthy, raunchy song about anal sex.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Bumps.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Blackwell was like, well, that's not gonna work for radio,
but it's a great tune. So they hired another songwriter
that worked for the label to kind of scrub the
lyrics and to make it something they could actually put out.
They recorded the new version in just three takes, so
(26:46):
and it is widely accepted that what they put out
in the world became the first mainstream hit song that
you could call rock and roll tooty fruity, what they
did in that studio. And you know, there is a
version of this story that Little Richard tells in his
interview in nineteen seventies, and it's great because it's just
fun to listen to him talk. It could be a
(27:06):
little hard to follow, but here here is his quick
and dirty version of what I just explained.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
How did you get to record in the first place?
Speaker 3 (27:14):
I was down there and I was so tired.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
I was tired.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Have you ever seen anybody tied?
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I was tied, y'all.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Lord Christ had put out a blues hit called Lord
and Miss Clothing, and he came through my hometown making
Georgia in a golden black Cadillac with a towe on
the back of it. I thought he was gonna roll
it down the street, but he didn't, Oh God, and
he brought came over up to me and he said,
now we're gonna make this tape and send.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
This little tape up here to special directors. I made
the tape, send it on up to Special and it
waited two years before they.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Came to see me.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Bumps Blackwell, they did it. Then they met me down
in New Orleans. Lousannah wanted me to sing like Ray Charles,
and I refused. And when they got down there, he
got to the fruity, although he had to clean it up,
but he.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Got wows catching strays.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
For everybody catches astray when't little Richard starts talking, there's
nobody that doesn't catch.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Astray because nobody could ever compare. So Toty Fruity comes out.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's a huge hit, and it's followed by several other
big hits, long tall Sally, rip it up, Ready Teddy,
and he is a sensation, particularly among white teenagers right,
like they really eat this stuff up. He's playing these
raucous shows, there's integrated audiences. He's doing shit like climbing
(28:32):
on top of the piano and throwing things out at
the fans or you know, screaming crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Like it's just a wild scene that he's creating that
is new and fresh.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And in these nineteen seventy two interviews, like he loves
taking us back to that moment, you know, and he's
asked a lot like and I think maybe because the
interviews from yours maybe perhaps like enjoy him doing this,
you know, but they keep asking him what's rock and roll?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
You oh, just to kind of get him to talk
about it, because they like, we want a little Riches show.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, give us the little Richard show.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
There's one that this is a really great one where
it's it's on this press tour in London.
Speaker 8 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
We don't actually know who what show this was or
what the interviewer was, but he just like he just
does this riff.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Just listen to this?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Can I ask you a cool question? Which for the
mums who listening to this prokem, they'll want to know
what rock and roll is.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
Rock and Roll is the music that heals your spirit,
that lifts your soul and take control and knock out
the headaches because it rocks it out, make the liver
quiver and the bladder splatter and your knees freeze.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
That's what rock and roll is.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
And don't forget whatever you're doing wherever you go, don't
forget to let it all hang out and keep all
rock and.
Speaker 9 (29:43):
Whoo whoo woo, and they will I've been doing this
a long time, you know. For the black, the white,
the red brin and the yellow. We're just like the linen,
the rose, the sunflower in the medallion where God spoke
the Children's of love. Keep all rocking, baby, little Richard,
the king.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Of rock and roll, Cassius Clean a rock and roll
more hammering that Little Richard.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Honestly, it's funny because as he was talking when he
was like the black for right, the purple and the
yellow or whatever it is that he's saying, like I
was like, oh, it does sound like Muhammad Ali actually.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Absolutely, like this is part of black culture in that era,
you know, like they both grow out of a signifying
culture at a time when we were happy to signify
and wordplay was important, you know, and so they were
two masters of it. And it's other thing about that
is he stays selling in these interviews. You know, he
(30:34):
is trying to sell.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Tickets to his shoes, very much like living to always
be closing lifestyle. Like he's definitely that's right, But there's
a don's happening in these interviews where definitely the interviewers
want Little Richard to put on a show, say stuff
like live a Quiver or a bar, and he's happy
to give it to him because he's trying to remind people, listen,
this is if you're going to get one thing for me,
(30:56):
it's going to be a performance.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
It's going to be a performance at tonight. Let it
all hang out. Come by these tickets, yes, you know,
and watch it happen.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
And I think it's important to take in for a minute, like,
who the audience for all of this was in the
nineteen fifties, right, This was white kids who were eating
this stop flop at a moment when the United States
was deeply, deeply interested in restoring the innocence of white youth.
(31:24):
We had created the suburbs, right, which were explicitly through segregation,
a place where white young people could hide from the
brutality of Jim Crow. That created all their privileges and opportunities.
That was the purpose of the suburbs. And we had
invented the idea of teenagers. This is what blows my mind.
It's so wild to think about how recent that concept is.
(31:48):
Like before World War Two, teenage wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I guess it never thought that ever it You were
just a young person.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah, well, you worked in factories, you worked on farms,
you were you were a laborer by the time you
were a teenager. You were a parent by the time
you were a teenager. And it was really a post
war creation, this of reclaiming of childhood and innocence that
was stolen during the war, right when all these kids
were sent off to die, right, But of course it
was one that was reserved for white people. Like there
(32:20):
were black teenagers, you know, but there were white teenagers
in the suburbs, and they were supposed to be innocent.
And a long comes little frickin' Richard, who is this
clearly gender queer man screaming, you know, like these.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Touty fruity doesn't sound sexual to.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Us now, but I bet you it did then, right,
these sexual things, and he is really an abomination relative
to these innocent white suburbs. And so the record executive
saw this in real time, and they saw the threat
that little Richard presented. I don't really fully understand this.
I think it's because he didn't own the writing credits, right,
(33:07):
The strong had been scrubs, so he didn't own the
bushing credits, I guess, right, And so they had a
bunch of big white artists record Tooty Fruit.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
The classic thing that happened to black ours in that day,
which is basically record a song and then it would
get warded down and kind of lilified on right radio
by another eyes.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Yeah, and I and I think this might be the
origin story of that process. But like this is like
a really big example of it. Because does a version
for Tooty Fruity. Pat Boon does a version.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
The version of toy Fruity.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Boon does a version of Too Dy Fruity. Elvis Presley
does a version of Too Dy Fruity. Both are much
larger hits than Little Richard. They both saw way more
copies of that than Little Richard ever sold for his version.
It's part of what sets Elvis on the road to
be the king of rock instead of Richard.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I'm trying to even imagine an Elvis version. What that
sounds like. There's a good rudy you know.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
To be honest, I never I didn't even go look
it up, and so little interesting. Now that you say it,
my curiosity stopped at the words Pat boot Els.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But you're right, I don't know what they sound like.
They must be horrible.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I just think it's it's not even just that it
would be horrible. It's just the things that make Tuty fruity,
like a fun tune to listen to. Like literally, just
the hind notes that Little Richard is hitting. Elvis's whole
thing is the exact opposite of that.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Physically, he can't sing that way.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, he's a voice in the basement, So it's
not it doesn't work the same.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
But I'm here to.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Tell you that at the time, they sold way more
versions of this record than Little Richard ever did.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
And his reaction to this.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Is what I want to talk about next, because when
I listened to his these interviews in nineteen seventy two,
despite all the bluster and salesmanship about the concert, you
can also hear his just frustration and anger and pain.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
All these years later. Yeah, you know, at the way
this erasure began.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
Little Richard knows that he is a hell of an
entertainer today for these kids, because if he wasn't, Mick Jagger,
Queen's clear Water Revival, the Beatles, Tom Jones, Elvis Presley
and all these people wouldn't have made it with a
Little Richard's tune. This Little Richard wasn't what he is,
but they won't choose to feel that you are nothing.
But I know that I'm great, the greatest, Thank.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
God, bes that's gonna be so. And I'm just listening
to that and just thinking about the performance that he's doing,
Like he's going around town trying to whip up like
ticket sales. He's having to like kind of dance for
them and do the be the little Richard, the most flamboyant,
(36:04):
almost probably doing a little bit of a parody of himself.
It sounds like, whilst also at the same time there's
truth behind it, which is you're literally kind of trying
to defend and remind people of your legacy. That's got
a take. Yeah, that's going to take a lot.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
It keeps happening. Yeah, he's constantly.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Being like, oh wooo, I'm Little Richard, and then like
the defensiveness comes up, you know, right, and he feels hurt.
But you know, I also want to talk about like
how he reacted to it and the real time and
how he might have kind of helped make it worse
for himself.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
So that's next.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Welcome Back. It's Big Lives. We're talking about Little Richard
and now we're talking about how he reacted to the
fact that Elvis Presley and these other white artists who
immediately copied his song in Tooty Fruity also immediately started
getting the credit for creating the sound of roll.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Right. So, nineteen fifty seven, he's at the height of
his fame.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
It's two years after Touty Fruity has come out and
all those other hits have come out. He's touring Australia
and while he's performing, he looks up into the sky
and he sees a bright red fireball. Now, what he
was actually looking at was the Sputnik one satellite.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Okay, I was like he was looking at the sun.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
He was looking at the.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Sputnik one s But what Little Richard decided he was
looking at was God. And he decided that it was
a divine sign from God that it was time for
him to repent his wild lifestyle. And reportedly he went
(38:03):
to the Sydney Harbor. He took off his jewelry, these
expensive diamond ring he threw them into the harbor. He
quit the tour, abandoned the tour, and publicly declared that
he was leaving the devil music.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Behind, leaving the devil music behind yeah, as in.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
It, all of it, it's the devil's music. He doesn't
want anything else to do with it. He's going to
go be a minister.
Speaker 9 (38:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah. So in nineteen seventy two, again back in London,
the host.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Of this late night show asks him about this, and
here's how he describes it.
Speaker 6 (38:40):
In I seven fifty eight, you retired, Yes, I did,
and what did you do?
Speaker 8 (38:45):
Then?
Speaker 4 (38:45):
I went to study religion, the Jewish religion, you know,
from sundown fled to nine Saturday Sabbath and you know
the Passover feasts and all and my people in the.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
You know they keep the Sabbath seven days Sabbath Jewish
my family, Yes, And so I went.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
To school there and I studied theology.
Speaker 5 (39:06):
And so after I came out of it, I didn't
go into it. I wanted to come back and sing
for my fans and my friends. I never leave my
fans and my friends again because they need me and
I need them. We help each other so much.
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Why did you drop out to the first place when
you were well?
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Because I would study and learn about you know, about
the love of God and that the black and white,
the red, brown and the yellow with just like the lily,
the rose, the sunflower, and the medallions where God's boquet
the children's of love and I just want to learn
about the love of God so we can learn how
to help and treat each other.
Speaker 6 (39:37):
There was a story that you threw eight thousand pounds
worth of rings over Cindy helper Bridge did that?
Speaker 5 (39:42):
Would like to find that fish that got them?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I got to say, first off, little Richard is not
a reliable narrator. And I have no idea what he's
talking about. With the Judaism piece of it. You know,
he was an evangelical Christian.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh so he didn't. He didn't study Judaism and become jurids.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
He did, he did, he went to seminary to disturb
study evangelous talk.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Oh he went.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Maybe there's some other part of it. I don't know,
but he is famously an.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Unreliable Maybe he's just like an Old Testament Christian.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
You know, like maybe that's what he meant.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
I do not know, but it is the case that
from nineteen fifty eight forward he would spend the rest
of his life coming in and out of being.
Speaker 7 (40:29):
This flamboyant, rebellious boy that became a rock star and
being an evangelical Christian who rejects everything about his prior life.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Despite what he.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Said in that interview he had rejected those songs. He
had said, this is the devil's music. I don't have
anything to do with those songs. Tooty Fruity in particular,
it's sexual and I don't have anything to do with it.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
It's so interesting that that. I mean, on the one hand,
it makes sense that it's a person who grew up
in the church, and it makes sense that he would
go back to the church in a safe space, even
though it doesn't sound like it was potentially that much
of a safe space when he was a kid. He
was intention with it blighty. But I don't know, it's
so interesting to me. The takeaway he has from someone
(41:14):
stealing his music isn't to be like, oh, this business
sucks or these white people suck. It's to be like, literally,
the music itself is devil music. Or maybe that's not
mutually explosive. Maybe it's all just like this whole business
is dirty and horrible, or what.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I hear him saying is that I suck, that I
am the devil, and that's why I haven't prospered in
this space is because I little Richard, this queer, rambunctious person,
am sinful in my core.
Speaker 8 (41:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's almost like because Elvis stealing his music, he sees
it as, oh, this is God punishing me.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
That's what I hear.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Because he never really fully claims his sexuality ever in
his life publicly, right, despite all this.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Stuff we know, like the original song to the Trudy
being about, it's like he's not he will now no.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Well, and I think not to himself. Maybe in some ways,
you know, like in the way that we think of
it today. He wasn't proud.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
He got married in nineteen fifty ninety, married a woman
named Ernestine Harvin who he meets while at like an
evangelical rally.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
They make music together. They make a song, an album,
a gospel album with Chrissy Jones. Actually okay, nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Like I said, he rejected that old music at one point.
He gets kind of anti gay. Later in his life
and his Christianity, he creates this traveling evangelical team that
travels around the country preaching, you know, but he also
can't hold it right then. He keeps coming back to
the music, so like in the early sixties. So he
(42:55):
leaves in fifty eight, early sixties as the sound starts
to take over, particularly in the UK with the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
He comes back right and he starts mentoring them and
Jimmy Hendricks and so forth. And in these interviews in
the seventies, you know, like he wants to talk about that,
he wants to talk about his time back and what
that meant to him, but that didn't hold. He ends
up going away again, and he just does this throughout
the rest of his life, like coming in and out
of the music and coming in and out of being
(43:24):
like I'm a Christian versus I'm a rock and roll star.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
It's sad because it's like, on the one hand, what
you're telling me is this story about this guy whose
whole genre doesn't seem to want to claim him fully
or claims him when it's convenient for them. But it
also seems like he didn't want to claim himself, you
know what I mean. He's yeah too.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
It's really tragic, and it's unfortunately a sadly common gay story.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
But so in the seventies, you.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Know, when we're hearing this interview, it's one of we're
hearing these interviews from the BBC. It's one of his
times where he's like tried to come back, so you know,
he's there.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Selling this concert.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And one of the things that's weird listening to the
tape of this is how he talks about the white
people who have become right and roll stars.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Beautiful. Yeah, hello, Cliff Richards, I still love you. He's
all right.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
He wants to simultaneously claim them as friends, but.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
He does keep showing his hurt.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You just keep hearing him be defensive about it and
then about being forgotten like this.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
And now they don't label at everything.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
They call it accid rock, anything from giving you the credit,
you know, they call it folk rock, a country rock,
anything to keep from saying rock and roll with little
Richard made.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
And there's this other thing that keeps coming up in
the interviews in seventy two because he's mad about the
way the concert has been organized and marketed.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
So what it is is it's actually a festival of
rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Also, it's not even just his comeback concert. It's a
bunch of people.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, you know, it's like Bill Haley and Jerry Lee,
Lewis and Bo Didley.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
You know, like it's an old.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Days like all the like rock and roll pioneers of
yester year.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah yeah, like Coachella of your yesteryear rock and roll
right right. But as the show culminates, the way it's
set up is first it's Little Richard and then it's
Chuck Berry as the closer.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Oh so he tools the end. He's a big name,
but he's not the biggest name. Literally, that's right.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Little Richard thinks he should be the headliner, right, and
he is very very upset that they have instead sold
it as Chuck Berry with the headliner here. He is,
like really talking about this on the nineteen seventy two
Late night Show.
Speaker 6 (45:54):
I understand has been a little friction between who is
going to be on the top of the bill. You're
Chuck Berry.
Speaker 5 (46:00):
Oh, I'm going to fix him.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
I am going to fix him.
Speaker 6 (46:04):
I said, he is my.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
Friend, but I'm gonna fix him. They made him the
star of the thing, and I'm my contract says that
I was the star. I am gonna fix him. The
Chuck Berry. I call him BlackBerry. My mama used to
make BlackBerry wine. I am gonna fix Chuck Berry. I
am gonna upset his nerve and let him know that
I am the king of rock and roll, the undisputed king,
(46:27):
and can't nothing take my throne. I am gonna show
him that he is from the valley and not from
the mountain. Chuck Berry know that I was a star
benist all my life. He can't close no show behind me.
I can't even have the nerve the audacity to walk on.
I'm little retchet Chuck Berry.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
They built him over me all these years, twenty three
years in show business. I am the creator, the originator
of the massurpator.
Speaker 5 (46:49):
I am the one, and I will you come out.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
I'm gonna fix Chuck Berry. This BlackBerry would.
Speaker 6 (46:55):
Be mashed a you gonna fix him.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
I am gonna shake his nerve.
Speaker 5 (46:59):
He can close the show, but when I get to
it's gonna be closed anyhow.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And that's the truth, see.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Right, Like you hear in his voices like a change
where it's like he's off joking half and then you
know he's dead series like twenty three years. Yeah, so
like obviously little Richards not getting the credit for rock
and roll? Were people getting it to Chuck Berry?
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Sure, everybody belt Elvis, Presley, Chuck Berry, all these people,
the Beatles, you know, the Stones, anybody but little Richard.
And some of that was the whitewashing that happened right
at the beginning. And some of that is because Little Richard,
in hating himself, took himself out.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
Of the taper. He stepped away.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
He stepped away, and.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
He kept doing it when he came back in the sixties,
and that could have been a time, but then he
stepped away again. And now he's back in the early
seventies and he's trying to reclaim it. And I mean
throughout every one of these interviews in seventy two where
he's selling this concert, this happens, you know, where he's
performing and performing.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
In all that fun tape that we heard, you know.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
And then like the other people who were thought of
by that point as the titans of rock and roll
come up and he claims them they're my friends. I
like them, and I think they probably were, you know,
like they didn't reject him, you know. And then it
turns where you hear this real bitterness and frustration, which.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
To be clear, I get, I would be hot, you
wouldn't be able to be out there right.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
So he does the show the following night after that
interview is the next night of that concert.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
How Great I Feel Love is? How does it go? Well?
Speaker 2 (48:38):
You know, Chuck Berry does in fact act as the headliner. Okay,
the crowd does not leave after Little Richard.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Does his opening set, and it's just kind of a.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Bus a bust in way like performance. Isn't that great?
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah? I mean I haven't seen it, but apparently the
performance was uneven and at one point he stopped singing.
There was some hiccups, and there was a concert film
that came after it, and that was well received. It
it's sort of been edited and you know, and apparently
like he did better in that. But this was supposed
(49:14):
to be his reclaiming of the throne, and that is
not what happened in that concert. Right.
Speaker 3 (49:22):
So he does this for a little bit longer, and.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Then by nineteen seventy sevent he quits again and he
returns to evangelism. He sells bibles, and it's not till
the late eighties when they create the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and that he starts to be recognized
as this titan that he was. He gets the lifetime
(49:44):
achievement awarded the Grammys in ninety three, that kind of thing.
But I think he was lost to history as the
just anarchic cultural disruption that he was. He changed the
course of the twentieth century with what he brought, and
even when we call him the King of rock and roll,
(50:06):
I don't think that's how we remember him. Yeah, And
he died in twenty twenty at the age of eighty
seven from bone cancer.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
Wait, he only died in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
I mean, I don't think that I really internalized that
because and then that's the thing. Honestly, it's like, this
whole time I've been talking about him, it's like he's
kind of cast an Amber in the fifties and sixties,
but it's tooty fruity when you listen to it, and
that music sounds like so of the period where it's
sort of like, I know it before Motown, but it
almost in some of its ways sounds kind of like
(50:39):
pre Way Child's even though it's not.
Speaker 8 (50:41):
So.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
I don't know if that's kind of why he was
only he was only eighty seven and twenty twenty, which
means he spent most of his life, most of his
adult life actually in this kind of musical limbo and exile.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean he was a teenager when he
was fourteen when he first found the music, and he
was very young when Tody w in the fifties and
he lost it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
And you know, it's also like he continues to pop
up in the culture. One of my favorite things I
encourage everybody to go you uh is to if you
aren't someone who has already watched Pee Wee Herman's.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Christmas Special from the late eighties, right, which is we
ought to do an episode on that alone.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
It is one of the greatest pieces of what cultural
relics of our of history. It's jammed backed with just
absurd celebrities showing up on Pee Wee Herman's at Pee
Wee's Playhouse for Christmas, and Little Richard is.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
One of them.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
There's this cutaway scene where he's out being Little Richard
i Ice skating around and it was I remember being like, oh,
who's that guy when I was a kid and saw that.
But he pops up in these weird ways in the culture,
but he just he's never he's never.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Back in the mainstream. After really after the after the fifties.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Wow, that's wild. When I think about some of these careers,
it's like music is at the time that he was making,
music is changing so quickly. You've gone from like jazz
to swing to beavop to blues to jump blues to
our rock and roll whatever in a short period of time.
But there are people in his contemporary world who are
(52:21):
trying to move along with those like and he just
never did that. Like, there's not like a little Richard
random attempt at a more poppy album or something, right.
Speaker 3 (52:31):
He doesn't.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
He doesn't come in and figure out how to how
to introduce synth, right, There's there's none of that for
a little Richard.
Speaker 3 (52:39):
He just goes to God and curls up in a
ball of self hate.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And here's the other thing. All these people that he
taught and helped, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or
these people when he's doing that tour in the seventies,
are they kind of coming out and like, right, we're
advocating for him, Like what's yeah? Watch their relationship with I.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
Like, I don't know that there's any relationship with them,
but it is a good point where have yelled been
all these people who grew out of him, you know.
I mean I think part of what got him reacknowledged
as the king of rock and roll when it finally
happened was, in fact, all of these rock stars who say, yeah,
I little Richard is the is.
Speaker 3 (53:22):
The big bang of this music. But in real time
were they with him? I don't know, that's a good question.
Where were you all? But you know, would he allow
them to be around too? I just don't know.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
I feel like we've talked about Little Richard in so
far is like, right, he's trying to get recognition from
that white suburban teenager crowd who grew up and became adults.
How did black people view Little Richard?
Speaker 2 (53:46):
I mean it was these were integrated audiences, so I
think black people walk the same path then everybody else,
kind of being introduced to this music, loving it, being
ready for more of it, and wondering where he went,
you know. I mean the counterfaction was what would have
happened had he kept performing right, you know, and that
(54:06):
we just don't he kept going and kept making music,
what would have happened? Would he have developed the black
audience that kept him safe? Would he become part of motown?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
We just don't know.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Yeah, we just won't know.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
So that is the story of Little Richard. Thank you
for going on that journey.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
For me, Thanks for taking me on.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
You got for me next week?
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Okay, so next I'm going to pay you a couple
of clips. Here, I'm gonna I'll just play you the
first one.
Speaker 8 (54:31):
And soap operas you're required to feel big.
Speaker 6 (54:35):
And feel big often.
Speaker 8 (54:36):
It's very frustrating too, because you're working with writing that's
not necessarily fantastic, and you're working in a medium that's
all about speaking your subtext, which is as an actor,
very a very very heinous thing to do.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
I have no idea who that is, and it does.
It's soap opera, Like, yeah, are we going to talk
about a soap star?
Speaker 1 (54:58):
We're definitely going to talk about a star, and we're
definitely going to talk about a person who's inhabited so
many different walls that I didn't even know about. I'm
gonna play you another clip.
Speaker 8 (55:06):
It's a very old fashioned movie. It's a movie that's
kind of about love in the movies as opposed to
love in life. You know, it's a very like you're saying,
a very sentimental movie and very very sweet, hugely sweet.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
Nope, nothing nothing, She's a white lady, important, important Who
this woman is? Oh what more?
Speaker 6 (55:27):
Harry met Sally. Of course, it's this famous orgasm scene.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
Are you?
Speaker 6 (55:31):
Are you very sick of it being referred?
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Okay, no, no, got it.
Speaker 6 (55:36):
I was just telling somebody.
Speaker 8 (55:37):
What I remember was that Rob Reiner, the director, had
a habit of in every scene standing next to the
camera and kind of mouthing the words along with you.
So he did that in that scene as well.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
Rip Rob Reiner. Yeah, I literally know nothing about this person.
All right, I know it is, but I know zero
beyond Harry met Sally about this person.
Speaker 1 (56:01):
So well, we'll get into it next time.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Big Lives is a production of BBC Studios and Pushkin Industries.
It's hosted by me Kay Wright and Emmanuel Joji from
BBC Studios. Our producer is Emma Weatheroll. Our archive producer
is Samira Chowdry. Executive producer is Annie Brown. The sound
designer is Melvin Rickapee, Production coordinator is Galen Davis Connolly,
(56:27):
and production manager is Mabel Finnegan Wright.
Speaker 3 (56:30):
Our apprentice is Amy Woods from Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Our executive producer is Constanza Guyato, producer Daphne Chen, legal
advisor Jake Flanagan, and marketing by Morgan Ratner and Jordan
mc millen.
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