Little Richard Documentary Filmmaker on Why Rock Pioneer Didn’t Feel He Had Been Recognized Enough

Jazz Tangcay
·6 min read
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Little Richard — music icon, legend and the man behind hits such as “Tutti Frutti” and “Good Golly Miss Molly” — inspired a generation. But despite his success, there were points in his career where “he doesn’t feel he’s been recognized,” says filmmaker Lisa Cortés.

Her latest documentary, “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” in theaters on April 21, seeks to remind a new generation of his legacy.

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Cortés says the documentary draws parallels with “All In: The Fight for Democracy” which she co-directed with Liz Garbus, in which she followed Stacy Abrams on her political campaign. Speaking with Variety, she said, “Both of these films are talking about issues that are political hot buttons. There are states where Black and queer history are under attack, and they’re passing laws against the teaching of this history. We see those are very important parts of Richard’s origin story and of rock ‘and’n’ roll.” She adds, “It’s a film that is still in conversation with many major things that we are facing right now.”

Cortés discussed over Zoom why it was important to tell his story and why he had to serve as the film’s storyteller.

You open with his quote, “I am the innovator. I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll!” Why start there?

He’s letting you know, as the children would say, “I have peed all over this.” He’s marking his territory and he’s marking it because he doesn’t feel he’s been recognized. The important role he’s played as part of the history of rock ‘and’n’ roll has been erased.

Most people don’t declare themselves as boldly as Richard did, but that’s what made him such a compelling character, because he did declare himself for something that he had the right to declare himself for.

What made you want to tell this story? Why him?

Richard is multi-tiered. It’s the music, the fashion and the makeup. He was also a transgressive figure, who shifted the energy of culture, and the ripple effects of that are still seen to this day.

Richard also provided a platform for many artists and was a mentor to so many. He took a teenage Billy Preston, a young keyboard player, to England and introduced him to the Beatles. Billy later became known as the Fifth Beatle.

James Brown — Little Richard brings him to Macon, Ga., and that’s where James records his first hit. That’s where James records his first hits. There are so many layers to looking at his contributions and then questioning what is it we don’t know about him.

Who were the important voices for you to tell that story?

The first voice that I had to give the microphone to was Richard, and give him the agency to tell his story through archival material. But Richard was not the most reliable narrator, and that’s why there are friends, family and scholars who are questioning some of the things.

At one point, Richard is talking about Lee Angel, his ex-girlfriend. He’s saying how she loves sex and is a whooper, and Lee counters that with, “Well, he says I did things that I have no recollection of doing.”
I love that we’re able to be in conversation with him, and to call him out on things that we as the audience are wondering if there’s a little bit of embellishment that’s going on.

In terms of the archival footage, what state was the older stuff in?

We did a very deep dive at the beginning of the film so I could find Richard’s voice and enable him to narrate the story over the years.

We got a lot of material from the BBC, and their archives were fantastic. Other footage, we had to clean up in post-production, and we might have heightened the color, a little bit on a coral jumpsuit, but overall, the film quality came quite pristine.

What did you learn about him in going through those archives and sitting down with the subjects?

I learned that he was not just this monolithic comic foil, who was saying “Shut up,” or calling himself a “Bronze Liberace.” He was more than someone singing “Rubber Ducky” on “Sesame Street.”

He was someone who experienced this really crazy roller coaster ride. He vacillated between being a sinner and a rock ‘and’n’ roll star, and that, I think in many ways, propelled the expression in his music. There has been tremendous erasure that’s happened in positioning him as one of the architects of one of the great American exports, which is rock ‘and’n’ roll.

What did you learn from exploring his relationship with religion and rock ‘and’n’ roll?

When you think of contemporary artists such as Sam Cooke, or even Marvin Gaye, who struggled with coming from the church and then doing popular music, they did not vacillate the way Richard did. Richard is at the top of his fame by the end of the ‘50s. He literally throws it all away. He throws away his jewels and he cuts his hair. He goes to Bible college and he studied at a seminary. But then there’s the call of rock ‘and’n’ roll, and it’s pulling him back. It’s pulling him to Europe, and suddenly he’s back.

And then, he has a period where he’s selling Bibles. So, he has these extremes of the sacred and profane, and he’s on this pendulum he’s on that swings from ‘I’m at the height of fame” to “I’m giving it all away.” He has a little bit of hot sauce in there. He was committed to his study and he fully entrenched himself in that world, but then he left it.

What does it mean to be telling his story now and introducing his music to a generation and showing how he had an impact on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and so many more?

It’s this opportunity to show the family tree of rock ‘and’n’ roll. Richard has a very legitimate place in the infrastructure that he occupies. So to show that, to show the importance of being Black and queer in this space and for that to be recognized, we are the recipients of so much that comes from Richard. But also, if you are not a musician, to see how prevalent all of that is in contemporary artists, to see how someone’s very audacity and self-invention and rebelliousness could change so much. We all have a little bit of his DNA sprinkled upon us.

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