Little Richard’s Glamorous, Perilous Life

By DON ROLLINS

“Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I’m gonna make a song that sounds like that.” - Little Richard

It was observed that even some of his most loyal fans took offense when still shots of Woody Guthrie were first published in newspapers and magazines. Despite a ragged voice, overbearing acoustic guitars and prickly lyrics, they’d embraced him as their Dust Bowl champion; but the more respectable took great offense at first-fold pictures of a tousled everyman holding a guitar bearing a handwritten warning: “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

Indeed, a few left-leaning swells circa 1937 had even pitched in to help with studio time for his early recordings - funding that dried up once his benefactors realized Guthrie’s threat to their capitalist ways.

Although a generation and stark racial realities apart, Guthrie’s use of the guitar as a pulpit (if not weapon) came to mind as news of Little Richard’s death broke earlier this month. Black not white, coiffed not rumpled, the piano-pounding icon likewise felt the early sting of a listenership eager to embrace pioneering music but not the pioneer.

Born into the deep poverty and racism of Depression-era Georgia, Richard Wayne Penniman grew up a child of the Black church. Small for his (his pronoun of choice) age, he was dubbed “Lil’ Richard” — a nickname that betrayed the powerful voice and wide range that so impressed legendary gospel singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, she featured the now teenager in her concerts.

Little Richard began learning piano, putting together and disbanding ensembles while at times giving up on music. His break came in 1955 when a sanitized version of his rowdy “Tutti Frutti” was recorded and released to instant success.

But his stage act and garb drew sporadic criticism from both fans and the staid white press. As with Guthrie, the musician didn’t always match the music.

Other hits followed as Little Richard and various co-writers followed up with more up-tempo 4/4 time originals, complete with bass, guitars, drums and full saxophone sections. The integrated venues and paydays grew larger as he charted nine Top 40 singles in four years, firmly establishing himself as the primary force behind a genre that would soon relegate big bands and crooners to the musical margins.

Little Richard twice left secular performing for gospel, but by 1964 had returned to recording, touring, and generally refining his raw vocals and runaway-train piano. He continued recording until 1992, and performing until 2014. Along the way he influenced some of the greatest acts of all time, and his songs continue to be some of the most covered in the annals of rock n’ roll.

Biographers have long speculated about Little Richard’s sexuality and sexual expressions, too often describing him in binary rather than fluid or trans terms. And after years of abstinence toward any substances, he became addicted to cocaine and heroin - powerful addictions that threatened his health, career and finances for nearly a decade.

Little Richard was by no means the first or last creative spirit to leave behind a complicated legacy. (For instance, we who grew up on rock’s second generation could more or less assume every festival headliner was bats**t crazy, so prevalent was the culture of excess.) Yet, as described in a recent online article posted at societyofrock.com, Little Richard’s rarified, alternately glamorous and perilous rock n’ roll life is forever part of the music itself:

“In more ways than one, Little Richard set the template for rock ‘n roll – the excesses, unrestrained aggression, rebellion, and sheer power. He was one of the first who bent the rules, broke the boundaries, and ignored conventions. Like your typical rockstar, Little Richard was not one you could confine in a box. Among the pioneers of the genre, he was the one who’s truly all-out.”

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2020

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