Little Richard, who died on May 9, 2020, at age 87, was no stranger to Alabama. The Georgia native performed in our state and attended Oakwood College in Huntsville during the late 1950s, studying to become a minister. Before his headlining appearance at the 1993 City Stages festival in Birmingham, the flamboyant rock 'n' roll pioneer talked to reporter Shawn Ryan of The Birmingham News, discussing his life and career. Here’s that story, which was published on June 11, 1993, with the headline “Little Richard vows he’ll make City Stages rock":
Little Richard has a question about City Stages.
"How big is it?"
Well, last year, when James Brown was the Saturday night headliner on the same stage that you'll be on, he drew a crowd estimated at about 35,000, he was told.
"Last year they had blues; this year they'll have rock. That place will rock; it'll be more rocking and banging on the piano," Richard says with his usual amount of restraint. "You got to witness it. . . . The energy level is up there. You know, rock and roll is energy."
And at one time, before a career that lost track as it jumped through more than a few hoops of musical schizophrenia, Little Richard was the definition of rock and roll energy.
When he first exploded on the scene in 1956 with "Tutti Frutti" he was considered shocking. Who is that sweating, grinning man with the swaying pompadour who pounds his piano like he's trying to turn it into kindling, kicks his legs in the air and sings racy songs about Miss Molly, Lucille and a tall girl named Sally?
Little Richard, born 57 years ago as Richard Wayne Penniman in Macon, Ga. Self-proclaimed Georgia Peach. Singer not only of "Tutti Frutti," but of "Good Golly Miss Molly," "Long Tall Sally," "Rip It Up," "Jenny Jenny" and half a dozen other songs that have become part of the rock dictionary.
Artists like Elvis, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, James Brown and Chuck Berry have called him one of the great originators of rock and roll. That's fine by Richard, who says the same thing about himself and has for almost 40 years.
"Young people come up to me and say, "We've heard about you. It's just like what they said, just like what mama said. You are something else'," he says. "They expect to see an old guy all bent over and who can hardly walk. I think they're shocked when I jump up on the piano."
And is Richard shocked that he still can do it?
“Noooooo! I think it’s all in your mind.” But it’s a mind that has had its share of confusion.
Although Richard has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and been given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the hottest part of his career lasted little more than a year. After a string of hits that started in 1956, he rejected all of it in 1957, throwing his jewelry off the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia and enrolling in the religious Oakwood College in Huntsville. He turned his back on rock and for the next five years devoted himself to religion, recording gospel songs for several labels. However, labels that he’d recorded pop songs for kept releasing them in dribs and drabs, confusing the public as to who and what Richard was.
About 1962, though, Richard had a change of heart. He tried returning to the secular arena with decidedly mixed results. Over the next 15 years he recorded for more than a dozen different labels. He did soul; he did raunchy R&B; he did rock; he did ballads, never achieving the same success as his early years.
Eventually, trying desperately to recapture what once was, he became a sad parody of his former self, wearing outrageous clothing onstage, sporting effeminate make-up and flaunting his sexual persuasion. In 1981, from a pulpit in New Orleans, he rejected homosexuality and later said God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.
After that, he left music for several years, but found he couldn’t resist its siren call and in the mid-'80s began a comeback. He says he now has his priorities straight.
"God is God. Work is work," he says. "They both have their place. The stage is my living; that's my livelihood. I enjoy my job."
In the past few years -- carefully keeping his sexuality and religion out of the picture -- he has launched an acting career that got his face back out into the public with appearances in the film “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” as well as TV shows like “Miami Vice,” “Amen” and “Bustin’ Loose.” Commercials for Taco Bell, Revlon and McDonald’s also have upped his profile.
"People say, “Richard, you look so young. What have you done?'” he says. “I just keep screaming and hollering. God has been very good to me, given me longevity. I ask Him to guide me and to lead me. I give Him all the credit.”
While he tours all over the world, he has limited his recording to children’s songs and albums, doing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” for Disney’s “For Our Children,” which raised money for The Pediatric AIDS Foundation, as well as “Shake It All About,” a solo children’s album. He says he has no desire to record a full-length album of rock and roll.
"I just felt that, with everything else that has been big in the past, if you can't top that, don't bother," he says. "I don't want to record just to be recording."
The children albums give him a chance to reach a new audience. Not to mention what they give him.
“I’ve always loved children,” he says. “My sisters and brothers have a lot of children. They keep you young. That’s what I want.”
Here’s Shawn Ryan’s review of Little Richard’s 10 p.m. performance on Saturday, June 19, 1993, at the Coca-Cola Stage:
Best showman: Little Richard. Although suffering from a painful toothache, Richard did what everyone in the crowd wanted him to do: He was Little Richard. And it’s hard to top that. As much a comedian as a musician, his 2-hour-plus set rambled a bit at times, especially with a too-long version of “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and his constant asking of “Are you having a good time?”, but he played the hits, he screamed and laughed. In short, he ripped it up.
Worst makeup: Little Richard. He was wearing so much he looked like a mannequin.