Queer Rock 'n' Roll Legend Little Richard Is Dead at 87

Little Richard, who is widely credited as a founding father of rock 'n' roll, died yesterday of bone cancer, The New York Times notes that his influence as a performer was immeasurable. It could be seen and heard in the flamboyant showmanship of James Brown, who idolized him (and used some of his musicians when Little Richard began a long hiatus from performing in 1957), and of Prince, whose ambisexual image owed a major debt to his.

Although rock ’n’ roll was an unabashedly macho music in its early days, Little Richard, who had performed in drag as a teenager, presented a very different picture onstage: gaudily dressed, his hair piled six inches high, his face aglow with cinematic makeup. He was fond of saying in later years that if Elvis was the king of rock ’n’ roll, he was the queen. 

His signature song, the first of his nine Top 40 hits, was "Tutti Frutti," which depending on who you ask started out as anthem about gay sex before its lyrics were cleaned up. 

Still, Little Richard will always represent a sad existence to this once-closeted gay boy of the 1970s and '80s. If it had just been my own self-loathing that made me feel embarrassed for him then I would only fault myself. But his clear struggle between his faith and his sexuality -- at one point he became a preacher and more recently he denounced gay and transgender people as "unnatural" -- represented everything that is wrong with organized religion, and I found his willingness to go along with it humiliating for everyone concerned. Still, you have to believe that the joy his music brought so many people is something that will be remembered far longer than the harm he caused so many LGBTQ people -- himself included -- during his 87 years on planet Earth. RIP.

I think these remembrances by two Kathys I adore sum things up nicely.

(Via Kathy Valentine)

I had the opportunity to work with him on Hollywood Squares, and when I ran into him later for another charity gig, he said he thought this clip was funny. I just about started crying! RIP #LittleRichard pic.twitter.com/NH31ktaT9j

— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 9, 2020

(Via Kathy Griffin)

Jamie Foxx's finest moment, playing Little Richard on "The East Hollywood Squares."

Song of the Day: 'The Girl Can't Help It' by Little Richard

Or in this case, the gay can't! (With thanks to Nuno.)

Music Box: Little Richard and the Go-Go's

 

 Just got to the part of Kathy Valentine's Twitter memoir -- if you're not following @KVmemoir, you're really missing out -- where the gals played "Tutti Frutti" with Little Richard at the 1994 American Music Awards. It seems everyone but her was kind of blah about the whole idea -- they thought she was "old style" -- but with guitarist Charlotte Caffey on maternity leave, Kathy seized the moment, moving from bass to lead guitar and having the night of her life! (Watch her and Richard have "a moment" -- it's really sweet!) I'd never seen this until day (the '90s just passed me by), but it turns out they also performed the song a week later without Little Richard -- but with Jools Holland -- on Chris Evans' UK talk show "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" (VIEW), as well as the funnest rearranged version of "Our Lips Are Sealed" (VIEW), all as part of the promotion of the "Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's" compilation. I'll bet the band just LOVED it when Evans referred to them as "Belinda Carlisle and the Go-Go's" and then pulled Belinda over to do a Q&A with her "superfan"!