When she set out to make a documentary on the life of musician Little Richard, director Lisa Cortés knew she’d be able to round up enough archival material and new interviews to get the job done. Yet what really excited her was the social context, being able to examine how a Black artist was able to cross over into the mainstream in the 1950s and become such an influential figure.
Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Cortes
Credit: Courtesy of Lisa Cortes
The fascinating “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, hits theaters April 11 before bowing on video on demand later this month, capturing the life of Richard Penniman and the ups and downs of his lengthy career. Among those who provide commentary are John Waters, Billy Porter, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger.
Born in Macon in 1932, the third of 13 children, Penniman started singing in the church and playing piano early on. He often butted heads with his religious father. Although he was in the South, oftentimes a place for lower tolerance, he was eventually able to find his tribe. “There were conservative elements that looked at him askew and didn’t understand and welcome him, but there was also this underground scene in Macon, Ann’s Tic Toc Room, where white and Black, straight and gay, came together,” says Cortés. “As Macon historians said, it was a gay bar.”
Credit: Sundance Institute
Credit: Sundance Institute
When he left home and decided to pursue a musical career, he landed in Atlanta. It was a logical part of his progression. “Before Little Richard could have the meteoric rise he had a regional journey,” Cortés says. “In Atlanta, there was the Royal Peacock Club, a vibrant Black arts and music community and he could get a notch in his belt as a performer.” Penniman also met R&B singer Billy Wright, a tremendous influence on his career who helped him land a record contract.
Little Richard’s first big hit was 1955′s “Tutti Frutti,” which introduced audiences to his style of brash performing and racy lyrics, eventually toned down by a producer. Yet the song was also recorded later successfully by both Elvis Presley and Pat Boone.
That was — sadly — typical practice. In the film, ethnomusicologist Fredara Hadley calls Black music “the wellspring of American popular music,” but laments the fact that industries and societies devalued Black creators and wanted the Blackness toned down.
Credit: BARRY WILLIAMS
Credit: BARRY WILLIAMS
Cortés, who co-directed the Stacey Abrams documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” examines that idea of appropriation here. “More harmful than appropriation is obliteration. The two go hand in hand. In the story of American popular music as it relates to Black artists in this time, that continuously comes up. ‘Tutti Frutti’ from Little Richard to Elvis Presley to Pat Boone is indicative of Black artists and their contributions being sidelined and then people saying ‘the person who made this famous is Pat Boone.’ No! The person who introduced the innovation of rock and roll and the energy of it and the performance was Little Richard.”
Race music, as all Black recordings at the time were called, was not played on white radio stations. It was less than a 100 years ago when Black artists and their innovations were segregated and contained.
Credit: Patrick Semansky / AP
Credit: Patrick Semansky / AP
Yet Little Richard’s music, played by independent DJs, was able to break the walls of segregation. “It started a movement towards Black and white teens coming together — dancing together, experiencing joy together, experiencing one another — who might not have had any contact at all with the other race. I think that’s an interesting part of the explosiveness and infectiousness of this music, how Richard shifts culture. He doesn’t shift it in outward ways like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who is marching for civil rights. He is shifting in a whole other level.”
The artist’s burst into prominence ironically paralleled the time in the country that Emmitt Till was murdered for whistling at a white woman. By putting on makeup and making himself effeminate, Richard did not challenge audiences and places that would be frightened about his effect on their kids and young white women.
The artist’s own sexuality was complicated. At times he called himself gay, then backtracked and said he wasn’t. After a marriage to a woman ended in divorce, he went back to relationships with men. Cortés calls Richard intersexual. “I think he is bold in many ways. He was on talk shows in the ‘80s talking about being gay. Although he had an uneasy relationship with his sexuality, at a time in the Reagan ‘80s, he’s still saying this is a part of his experience. It’s unfortunate that he could not find a peace within himself to own and live in his multitudes but I think there is something radical in his act of expressing himself in a very public space, with negative connotations.”
Throughout his career, Little Richard sold more than 30 million records and received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammys in 1993. He was very public about all the careers that he started. “There are a ton of artists that he is a part of their foundational story. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame happened (in 1986) he wasn’t able to participate and that would have been the moment where he had that recognition. But he was vocal that he wasn’t recognized (as much as he thought he deserved to be) and that’s why (his recognition at) the 1997 American Music Awards is very poignant.”
Little Richard’s legacy includes recognizable hit songs and heavy influence on everyone from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Prince, as well as contemporary artists such as Harry Styles and Moses Sumney. Yet Cortés adds another layer. “Cultural change happens slowly. It doesn’t happen overnight and when you’re a transgressive figure like Richard was, your ripple effect is part of what moves us towards change, toward greater gender fluidity, toward providing a platform for many modes of self-expression. Even though he was not truly the beneficiary himself, I think he is a catalyst towards great change. He planted a lot of seeds in his garden.”
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