Like a lot of early rock 'n' rollers, Little Richard's life and career is not something I know about in detail. Before going in to see this my thumbnail summary was Awopbopaloobopalopbamboom and sexual ambiguity. The film is pretty good, in that it certainly tracks through the contours of his strange life in a way that left me considerably more informed, but it had certain annoying features. First of all was the presence of all the ponderous talking heads telling us all how important Little Richard was. I was half expecting Bongo to show up but we were at least spared that, but in general I do not appreciate people appearing in a documentary telling me what I am meant to think about the subject.
The other thing that annoyed me was the continuous claims by people in the film that Little Richard's career had been sabotaged by the rock establishment who had then gone on to write him out of history. That kind of semi-conspiratorial thinking seems to be a staple with discussions of cult figures. It generally doesn't add up, and it particularly does not in this case. As the film's use of archive footage makes clear, Richard seems to have spent most of his life appearing on TV chat shows, which is pretty good going for someone written out of history. And as to his career being sabotaged by the rock establishment, firstly it was a general feature of the early rock 'n' rollers that they didn't really remain relevant that long, not because of a conspiracy but because music moved on and they didn't. But in Little Richard's case, if anyone sabotaged his career that person was Little Richard, whose problematic religious beliefs kept causing him to give up making music (because it meant he thought rock 'n' roll was the music of the Devil).
The Little Richard story is still a fascinating one. I just wish there was a better film about it: one with less annoying talking heads and more analysis of his own conflicted relationship to his sexuality.
image source:
Little Richard, Little Richard (Guardian: "Little Richard: I Am Everything review – irresistible tribute to a rock’n’roll genius")
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