DISGRACELAND - Little Richard: Sex and the Duality of the King and Queen of Rock ‘N’ Roll

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

Little Richard is the originator. Without him it’s hard to imagine the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John or even Led Zeppelin. He blazed a trail through popular culture that previous to him did not exist. His music was completely original for the time, the essence of rock ‘n’ roll, filled with impassioned energy, fueled at times by large quantities of drugs and always brimming with sex. The sex, the drugs, and the party for Little Richard, it was as endless as the manic energy that drove his music and it all nearly derailed him––several times––landing him behind bars and on the wrong side of the gun.  To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway then Elizabeth Taylor. That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on,

from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning, I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.

He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey, heads up guys. This episode, more than any other Disgraceland episode, is about sex. Casual sex, predatory sex, sex, sex, sex, crime.

sexual glory, sexual confusion, and finally, backward attitudes towards sexuality. If sex and depictions of sex aren't your bag or trigger you in some way, then feel free to skip ahead. And if on the other hand you're a freak, then buckle up, you pervert, God save Little Richard. The stories about Little Richard are insane. As a rock star, he was fueled by angel dust and cocaine. The party was as endless as his manic energy. Backstage orgies were the norm. For Little Richard, sex was as formative in his early years as music was. Before becoming famous, he drove the streets of his hometown, Macon Georgia, with a woman in the back seat of his car soliciting sex from random men. He orchestrated group sex in motels, dressing rooms, wherever, not so he could directly engage, but so he could sit back and watch. And he always kept the Bible close by in cases.

his conscience got the better of him. His conscience fueled his relationship with God, a relationship that would at different times in his life mean more to him than sex, drugs, rock and roll, or any of them combined. And when it came to rock and roll, Little Richard was both the king and the queen. During his reign, he made great music,

some of the greatest music of all time. Earth-shattering, norm rattling, genre-bending, fence-mending, soul-sending, sweet, saving great rock-and-roll music. And that music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Come on, Diane. Sam was only kidding, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to honeycomb by Jimmy Rogers.

And why would I play you that specific slice of wannabe Elvis cheese, could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on October 4th, 1957. And that was the day that Little Richard moved by a fiery ball streaking across the sky through his $8,000 ring into the ocean and abandoned rock and roll, forsaking it for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. On this episode, backstage orgies, prowling peep shows, fiery signs from God in Little Richard. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. When Little Richard burst onto the charts in 1955,

It seemed to happen overnight. Out of nowhere. One day, he was nobody, and the next he was known by everybody. He sounded like an overnight sensation, urgent, sudden, impishly confident. But it wasn't overnight. It took him a while. Years, actually. And he carefully crafted his image and unique style in true Frankensteinian fashion.

From the church, he got the urge to testify and the guts to stand up in front of a large crowd, eager to receive the good word. Little Richard's rock and roll shows were sermons. He stood up at the piano. He wailed on the piano. He lifted his leg up on the stool and climbed on top of the piano. All the while, that steep pompadour dew stood rock solid, supported by the toothy grin beneath it. His pressed suit, bone dry, his face wet with ecstasy.

His gravelly yas, followed by breathless ooze, buoyant, weightless. His body went up the piano. His voice went up the sky. everything was up, up, up, it was ecstatic. And it was repeated again and again for good measure. Whatever he needed to do to keep the crowd engaged, to take them there, to get them off. To that communal plateau of mind, body, and spirit.

Yogis call it consciousness, squares call it church. However you describe it, Little Richard was a hyper-sexualized Holy Trinity, and he knew it, he knew he could sing, he knew he could entertain, and within seconds his audiences knew it. audiences knew it too. They felt it deep down in their soul. It didn't matter if they were white or black. It was pure transcendence. And you could dance to it. From the traveling medicine shows in vaudeville stages, he learned to unchain his inner queen and embrace his own idiosyncrasies. It didn't matter what anyone else thought. Little Richard didn't give a fuck. Little Richard was

Camp incarnate. The music wasn't the only thing that was amplified. His hair, was bigger, his rings were gaudier, his perfect pencil mustache and mathematically cultivated eyebrows were as orchestrated as his song arrangements. On stage, he was handsome and he was beautiful, all at the same time. He was masculine, he was feminine, capes, headbands, frills, tassels, shirts adorned with tiny reflective mirrors, sleeves with dramatic flowery cuffs, ascots, feather headdresses, leather g-strings. The crowd allowed him to be flamboyant to be over the top, because he owned it. It was an inextricable part of him.

His outfit was as shocking as his voice. Pink shirt, leopard print lapels, big rings, the man was iconic from the jump. And the rest, he learned from Escarita. 1950, Macon, Georgia, the Greyhound bus station off Route 80, truckers on overnight shifts breaking from dodging way stations,

transients taking shelter from the gnaw of the night, perverts, prowling, hustlers, hustling. The bus station has long been a safe house for clandestine encounters for those looking for some sort of sexual experience that deviated from what society at large deemed acceptable. And in 1950, there was a lot that society deemed unacceptable. Despite his conservative upbringing, little Richard was looking for the unacceptable. He was 19. He'd grown up in Macon's church community. He sang at prayer meetings, old folks' homes, and church retreats with the tiny talk. He was a born performer. He spent a lot of his formative years looking in a mirror. He sang loud,

wanted to impress, wanted to reach people. But there was more to performing than singing spirituals for gray-haireds and rocking chairs. As a teen, he got a taste to the flip side of the performing lifestyle when he joined traveling shows like the tidy, jolly steppers and the Broadway follies. He wanted more than what Macon had to offer. He knew he had more than Macon could handle. On the road, he sang secular songs, even dressed in drag, and as exciting as it all was, as much as it allowed him to scratch that no-holds-barred performing itch that he had, he felt guilt, felt that what he was doing, what he wanted to do, was wrong. He was straying far from God, far from the church.

In times of spiritual and psychological crisis, he relied on the voice of Angel in his head, a benevolent voice. Angel moved him closer to redemption, closer to cleanliness, away from the temptations that could pervert him, temptations that a life traveling and singing on the road and juke joints in R&B clubs would lay bare. Angel's voice was the opposite of the voice of evil, a freaky, funky, far-out contradiction. Evil was a malevolent voice that led Richard down the path of selfish pleasure, a voice in his head that said, if it feels good, do it. He had the rest of his life to get right.

with God, evil said. Right now, he owed it to himself to live the lifestyle that he wanted, the one that felt good, the life that felt right. Richard was torn, conflicted. From birth, he embodied both the desire to do what was expected of him, as well as he urged to follow his instincts, and the way he talked, the way he dressed, the strange things that turned him on. As a teen, he lacked confidence, not the confidence to join up with a traveling show and wear a dress, but the confidence to stay there in Macon and be like the rest, like the squares. So he took a job at the Macon Greyhound bus station, where all those conflicted feelings of what was supposed to be right and what felt right

clashed and co-mingled in the bathroom stalls on a nightly basis. He washed dishes in the greasy spoon kitchen and sang under his breath as the pots and pans banged out a makeshift rhythm in the sinks. After his shift, he would linger in the men's room for a while. while, so long even that he would lose track of how long he'd been in there, looking for feet underneath the stalls, looking over his shoulder toward the guy next to him at the urinal, looking for a subtle acknowledgement, a knowing nod for an invitation to engage in the type of men's room encounter he yearned for but could never speak of. And then, off the bus,

stepped Escarita. Escarita was a piano playing team, three years Richards Jr., touring with a traveling preacher and snake oil saleswoman named Sister Rosa. At this point, Eskerita was still going by his given name, SQ Reeder. When Richard first saw him, he was struck, a thunderbolt. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. All that sex, all that confidence, those blurred gender lines, one part Amazon, one part pinup, six feet tall, that mouth that stretched out wide, an effortless smile from ear to ear, assassin's specks, black, beautiful, chic, cool, sex en fuego sent from the fiery depths of hell. Richard's jaw dropped, his heart pounded. He dropped the dish he was rinsing off into the sink.

It crashed. Water splattered up on the little Richard's pretty dumbstruck face. Richard stared out of the kitchen window at Escarita as he walked slowly down the steps of the bus, and shore paraded with ultimate sass into the restaurant, past the seats at the counter, Straight into the kitchen, right up to the pretty little thing, working the dirty little dishrag, and slapped Little Richard clean across the face. Escarita then pivoted abruptly on his Cuban heels and waltzed out of the kitchen. Little Richard was in love.

In Escarita, Richard recognized a kindred spirit. Escarita read Devil's Workshop, vaudeville, Chitlin, Carney. Richard didn't know where, but he knew what. Escarita was in business, the business of show, show business. and black, young, and somehow experienced and gay to boot, obviously. Richard knew it was destined, knew they were supposed to cross paths. Angel or evil had put Escarita on that bus, and it was Richard's duty to receive him. They talked, they bonded.

Richard noticed Escarita's huge hands. His mind wandered. Escarita put them on a piano. Richard was lifted. Escarita began to sing. He wiggled his head as he did it. And Richard saw an Escarita an aspirational reflection of himself what he could become. He saw his future in Eskerita's rapturous face.

He saw himself back on the road, a traveling man, singing that ass-shaking music unlike anyone else. Ironically, just like Eskerita, he now knew what he'd look like, what he'd sound like. Even though Eskerita was a few years younger, Richard had found his rock and roll teacher. He received a crash course, a crash course in piano playing, but also a crows. crash course and how to become himself. Evil was in his head, she was loud, and she agreed. Evil was taking a ride on the pendulum, the one gauging Richard's conscience. Evil was straddling it like a young girl straddles a tire swing. Evil swung on that pendulum, far away from the right side of God, far away from Angel, and far away from what was deemed acceptable and polite make

in society. Richard didn't care. He swung too, swung right out of town and into the big time, Into the business of show just like Escarita, where he knew he could behave however the fuck you wanted to. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters.

He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation.

New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place, and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien.

And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film grape I got to. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes.

Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over it. From hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is.

Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air. So much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships,

and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door, and he jumped in a car and drove off,

and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. People were always singing in Macon, Georgia. Music was everywhere. The town was alive with it, on paved streets, on dirt roads, on porches, on the tongues of residents in Macon's churches. Music was in the air. In the morning when the sun rose, promising another sweltering day and at dusk when the gnats would come out and get caught up in the cudzu. Born in 1932, Richard Peniman grew up where the black and white neighborhoods

overlapped in Macon. His father, Bud, ran a juke joint called the Tipin Inn. He also ran moonshine. In the Peniman household, Bud and Leva Mae and their dozen kids didn't want for much. As a young boy, Richard was different, in more ways than one. He was picked on mercilessly. He was born with one leg shorter than the other and thus

ridiculed for the way he walked. Long strides twisted up with short ones. He was born with one eye bigger than the the other, and with a giant head that bobbled atop his small frame. Kids teased him for that, too. He was effeminate, and he talked more like a girl than a boy, and more fodder for the bullies. He powdered and perfumed his face in the bathroom mirror, and his classmates had a field day with that one, too. They called him names, called him Bighead, freak, sissy, f*** it. Richard's dad wasn't a fan of his sons of Feminate Ways. You're only half a son, he told Richard.

My daddy had seven sons, and I wanted seven sons, but you fucked up that. real good. Just by being born, Richard had already done something wrong. And then, there were the people in Macon who didn't ridicule Richard for the way he looked or the way he walked or the fact that he wasn't as manly as the next guy. Instead, they saw an impressionable young boy aching to fit in, and they saw a mark, a vulnerable boy, a boy who would be easily persuaded. Richard was propositioned at an early age by older women from around Macon, and they'd ask him prying question and sexual questions, he'd tell them whatever he thought they wanted to hear and then it would be on. Sex, at the age of 16, with older adult women.

And it wasn't just women. Men, white men, would pick Richard up along with other boys' age on the side of the road, drive them out into the woods, and forced them to perform oral sex. The scene was entirely fucked up and completely dangerous. Richard was one of many who would get stopped by a couple of older men, the locals called Madam Oop and Sis Henry. If you dilly-dallied long enough on your way home from school, Madam Oop or Sis Henry would catch up to you,

waltzing through the street, singing songs, the way most making residents would, minding their own business. Madam Oop would pop out of the shadows, ask you what you were doing, ask you where you were going, tell you how nice he looked, ask you if you wanted to make a little money, wanted some quick cash. All you got to do is follow Oop right over there

into the bushes, into the woods, behind the gas station, wherever. Richard didn't like what came next. but money was hard to come by and make it. He'd go through the motions. Madam Oop pulled his shirt out out of his pants and then slowly lifted it up to show Richard the colostomy bag on his side. Too much ick as had destroyed his rick, turned his a bit out into what Oop explained

was something more akin to a floppy old than a working functioning e-boh. Biologically, it was useless. Thus, the colostomy bag, but sexually, well, the Lord taketh, but he do giveth too. Oop may have no longer hadn't a B. A-2. But he did now have a it was gross, insane even.

The sex scene in Macon. And Richard wanted out of the freak show. He was failing in school and falling in with the wrong crowds. Scavenged by the likes of Madam Oop. He wanted to do right by God. Get on the right side of Satan. Be good, but feel good too. He felt pulled by the evil, felt the whispers from evil blow against his ear. The only thing he enjoyed was singing with gospel groups in town.

Richard loved singing. He sang at prayer meetings, saying on people's doorsteps, saying everywhere someone else wasn't already singing. So, when Dr. Hudson's medicine show came through Macon in 1948 selling snail oil and singing secular tunes, Richard saw an opportunity and jumped on board, joined the circus as it were. Even if the real circus in Richard's eyes was Macon, he had to get away and he was just 16. He played with the medicine show, got hooked up and sang with others, B. Brown and his orchestra, the tidy, jolly steppers, the L.J. Heath Show, the Broadway Follies. He joined a vaudeville show called Sugarfoot Sam from Alabama,

put on a dress and heels and performed as his alter ego, Princess Levant. His performances soon led to attention from R&B DJs, and at 1951, at 18 years old, he found himself in the studio for the first time. His single taxi blues with every hour on the flip side did well in both Macon and Atlanta. Locally, he was making a name for himself. But the brakes were pumped when Richard's father was shot and killed in the street.

Gunned down outside the tip-in-in-in by Frank Tanner after an argument. Bud called Frank out on some bullshit. Told him to take his big mouth outside. Bud didn't take any shit. Anyone could tell you that, especially his half-son Richard. Bud followed Frank outside, and Bud was packing, like he and many residents of Macon often were, like Frank Tanner was. Frank turned around and shot Bud dead, some real Wild West shit.

Bud didn't even make it to the hospital. The rest of the details were fuzzy and there was no real investigation. Frank didn't serve much time. In the wake of his father's death, Richard looked to the Lord for guidance, but the Lord must have been busy. In the absence of any spiritual advice, Richard felt the pole of rhythm and blues. The music he had heard and sang on the road resonated in his head, and the absence of the Lord in his life created a voice.

void, and Richard filled it with the desire to make the kind of music that made people jump around, you know, devil's music. Richard was also filled with another desire, the kinder desire that goes hand in hand with that hot, sweaty, kernel music, a desire for flesh, a desire for the things he knew were wrong, but that made his head spin, so-called evil things. And Fanny, Richard's new friend, knew of such things. Richard was back in Macon, off the road to bury his father. father. Fanny was Richard's local partner in crime, his partner in kink. And Fanny knew what Richard liked. He'd like to watch. And Fanny liked sex. A partnership was born. Richard talked about peeking and hiding and ducking back in the alley, some real under the radar shit. He had a car, he'd drive

around town, find guys who were ready and willing, and Fannie could freak with them in the back seat. Richard. Richard would just watch. They cruised Macon, slow. In the early 1950s, at night, on the sidewalks and street corners. If you knew what you were looking for, it was easy to spot strange men looking for late night strange, looking for something they weren't going to get at home. And Richard had what they wanted, right in the back seat of his car. Richard was shift into neutral and coast over to the side of the road.

The night's so black and dead, all you could hear for blocks was the wind blowing, insects humming, trains whistling. Richard would pull over, slow, creep, catch the man on the corner's eye, through the passenger window, make a gesture with his head towards the back seat. The man would then walk to the rear passenger door, open it. And there, laying on the back seat was Fannie. Legs spread, no panties on underneath their dress. The man would jump in, scramble to undo his belt while Fanny would reach up, pull a zipper down.

The car would lurch from side to side, parked and idling on the side of the road. While Fanny and the man get to know each other, biblically and Richard, Richard would just watch. One hand on the wheel and the other, well, doing the devil's business. His neck craned to fully observe the action in the backseat of his own chauffeur fuckmobile. No money was exchanged. Fanny screwed strange men because little Richard told her to. Richard had that swag. He got cocky, wanted to double down.

He drove the car to a gas station, did his thing and caught the attention of a man standing outside, made the gesture, the back seat. and the man beat a beeline in Richard's car. But Richard didn't notice that the gesture also caught the attention of the gas station clerk, who couldn't help but watch. He saw Richard's look, saw the back door open, saw Fannie on the back seat, legs spread wide, and the man climbed in on top of her and shut the door behind him. The clerk slowly walked from the gas station like he was in a trance.

He got closer and stole a glance through the back window. And the guy was going to town on top of the girl, and Richard was watching from the front seat. The car idled, it shook. And the clerk snapped too. His titillation gave way to shock. To a muffled gasp, to the need to do his civic duty and report what was surely all kinds of broken laws, not to mention a blatant affront to God himself.

He ran back inside the gas station, picked up the phone. The car was still idling, still rocking when the blue lights flickered on behind Richard. The lights startled him, pulled him out of his self-contained world of sin. And the cop wrapped his nightstick on the window and startled him. Richard even more. Fannie and the man in the back seat jumped, and the guy popped the back door open, fell out of the car, and struggled to pull his pants on. Richard was out, hands up, turned himself around to face the vehicle and got the pat down. He was going to jail. After a few days behind bars, they told him to leave town. Just as Richard had felt the need to get out of Macon,

Macon had felt the need to get Richard out of their community. And the feeling was mutual. Richard was cast out. And there was no going back. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened.

His father just grabs him and says she's gone, she's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet?

Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was.

Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over. From hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history.

I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex, power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal

to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of showed me out of the way and said, move, and he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Lloyd Price patted the ridges of his perfectly quaffed hair and told Little Richard that specialty records was where it was at. Specialty needed someone like Little Richard, a cat who was cut above the norm, a cat who stood out

and turned heads. Lloyd told Richard to send his demo straight to Art Roupe in Los Angeles. Tell him Lloyd sent him. He patted his hair again, partly to make sure it was still a as pretty as it was five minutes ago, partly to reinforce his star time image. Lloyd Price was a motherfucker of a musician, recording artists for specialty records, the voice behind the number one song Lottie Miss Claudie, and he would daintily adjust his hair anytime he'd damn well please so you wouldn't forget it. Richard wasn't thinking of Lloyd's hair. He had his own hair to think of. His hair would turn even more heads. But he was mostly thinking of Lloyd's recommendation. Richard was desperate to get on specialty's roster, like a hungry dog that had grabbed hold of a big slab of

meat and wouldn't let go until he could drag it away into a corner on his own. He wanted some. He knew that specialty would want him too. Richard was used to being wanted. They had been grinding it out, playing his excitable R&B music to paying crowds all over the south. He made some sporadic recordings for RCA Victor and Peacock Records. He opened for Sister Rosetta Tharp and Little Johnny Taylor. He cut sides with Johnny Otis. Johnny Otis. Attraction was limited. When Lloyd Price played Macon and ran into the Little Richard Performance Juggernaut, Lloyd saw the greatness in Richard playing his day.

He saw the Frankenstein pieces coalesced into one, the church zealot, the traveling medicine show freak, the Escarita inspired virtuoso. Richard took Lloyd's advice and sent his demo up to specialty. For days, he didn't hear anything, and then weeks. He called, and they weren't interested. He waited some more, called again, still, nothing. It wasn't until specially got desperate

until they started to realize that they needed to compete with Atlantic Records and Ray Charles for a bigger slice of the R&B pie that they decided to give the making kit a chance and they returned Richard's calls. And from there, it was a blur. The label sent Richard to New Orleans.

The guys from Fats Domino's band waited in the studio, a tiny room in the back of J&M amusement service, a jukebox operation in the French Quarter, 16 by 18 feet. Richard and the others packed like sardines and a tin, playing like they were trying to bust out of the room, tear its walls down, blow its roof off.

They cut track after track after track, take after take, and the room was hot, sweltering. Richard played and sang like he was making up for lost time. Lucky had to get the music out, the ideas down, had the secret code to reinvent the wheel and he was going to bring a room full of tempered New Orleans session men along with him whether they liked it or not. And Tutti Fritty was released first.

It was a smash. It peaked at number two on the R&B charts, crossed over to the pop charts where it made it to number 21. The song sounded like an explosion. It had energy to spare. It all hinged on a line of lyrical nonsense that somehow made total sense. A wop babalubop, a wop bam, boom.

Like most of Richard's songs, it was coded. It was a sex romp. He wrote what he knew. And it sold a million copies. Richard's live show was just as explosive as his recordings. With his band The Upsetters, he did the upsetting. He stood up, moving, played the piano, but wouldn't be bound to it. Through his clothes at the audience, and women threw their panties right back at him.

He played seven nights a week with the Upsetters, sometimes up to three shows and one night. He had everyone's attention, sometimes too much attention. In Texas, the police stopped the show and arrested him on the spot. He had two strikes, long hair, and the way he danced. The cops weren't going to wait to see what the third strike was. As he dove deeper into rock and roll, it wasn't just the way he performed on stage that got him in trouble. Backstage, behind closed dressing room doors,

Richard surrendered to the temptations of the flesh, the kinkier the setup, the deeper the thrill. Before a show at the Brooklyn Paramount, Buddy Holly could smell the sex backstage before he even reached the dressing room. Richard had invited Buddy to visit before his set that night. We're going to have some fun tonight, Richard had promised. Richard said his girl, Angel would be there. And that was all Buddy needed to hear.

Buddy thought of her otherworldly dimensions, that breathy voice, thought of all the things Angel would do for Richard on a moment's notice, and oh boy, Buddy Holly was ready-tedy. And when he threw the dressing room door open, the three half-naked bodies were knotted up in such a way that Buddy couldn't tell where one body began and the other ended. Richard, Angel, and Larry Williams, specialty's latest self-proclaimed bad boy.

Angel was living up to a reputation. At least the reputation, little Richard, Richard was hanging her name on. And her full name was Lee Angel, but everyone just called her Angel. An exotic dancer, Angel had first caught Richard's eye because of her cartoonish build. He bragged about her 50-inch bust and 18-inch waist, curvy in all the right places, made his big toe shoot up in his boot. And she was still in high school when Richard met her, and he was 24.

Angel would do whatever Richard asked her to. She'd have sex with other men while Richard watched. She'd have sex with other women while Richard watched. Sometimes, Richard would get involved. Other times he'd just sit in the corner, lurk in the shadows, eyes wide, dick, hard, Richard, the watcher. But right now, he wasn't just a watcher. He was an active participant. The Pancake 31 makeup ran down his flushed face, while a pair of hands ran up his thighs.

Whose hands? Buddy couldn't tell. Larry Williams tagged out and Buddy tagged in. He wasn't going to let a red-hot threesome power. him by before he was called to the stage. In these moments of sexual ecstasy, Richard would feel God pulling on him, pulling him out of the filthy pit of depravity he was so drawn to, and away from the carnal acts he felt compelled to perform and receive from an early age. He heard the familiar voice in his head and knew it was angel,

not the angel who was sucking on his nipple in the dressing room, not earth angel, but another angel, a heavenly angel, an angel who spoke to him in his times of spiritual and psychological crisis, an angel who motioned him closer to redemption. But the voice of evil chimed in too and reminded him why he deserved to be twisted up with two other sweaty, naked bodies on the floor backstage at the Paramount. Little Richard is the greatest evil total. Little Richard is the king of rock and roll, the queen of rock and roll. And he was the holiest, the godliest, the freakiest, the deekiest. The voice of angel wouldn't be deterred.

Richard had all but abandoned God traded in a truly pious life for rough and tumble music and rough, tumbling sex. But Richard's angel wasn't deterred. She'd find another way to get through. And so it was, while headlining a tour of Australia with Eddie Cochran and Jean Vincent,

that little Richard stood at his piano at an outdoor show in Sydney and arched his neck towards the night sky. He saw a red streak burned through the air far above where he stood, knees bent and fingers hammering the ivory. Angel was out of his head now and was sending a harrowing message of death and destruction

straight towards him. It would set fire to Sydney and to him, and it would all be his fault. He struck the piano so hard with his hands he wondered if his rings would shatter. He hit the piano harder to distract himself from the terror he felt, the imminent danger he knew he was in.

He'd hurt himself just to make it all go away, but it wasn't going anywhere. He had to go somewhere. And that was it. He was done. He walked off that stage and he wouldn't go back. He asked Angel to tell God that this was it. This was the last show and begged her to stop sending him flaming balls of chaos and disorder.

He'd end it tonight. To prove himself, he ran to the Sydney Harbor and threw his $8,000 ring in the water, left the Torah with 10 days of shows remaining, half a million in canceled bookings, lawsuits, anger, outrage. He went back home, locked himself in a room with a Bible, and didn't talk to anyone. And the flaming red ball of fire that he saw burn up the night sky in Australia wasn't a sign from God. It was Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that had just been launched into space.

But even if he told little Richard the truth in the moment, he wouldn't have believed you because he had been sent a message. He was reminded of the awesomeness of God and the vengefulness of God. Should Richard give in to the earthly evil path, possible through rock and roll. They said he was dead, but he had taken his own life. Some said he had been committed,

forced into the loony bin, and the rumors weren't true. But the ones where Little Richard got married to a woman and traveled the country preaching the word of God, those rumors were dead on. Five years, that's how long Little Richard lasted without rock and roll. He did the revival tent and seminary circuit, recorded gospel albums with Quincy Jones. But to cut rock and roll out of his life completely, that was a bit much.

Everything of moderation, wasn't that the phrase, the true words to live by? A little by little in the mid-1960s he came back, back to his throne, toured his own songs, hired and then fired Jimmy Hendricks. By the end of the 60s, inspired partly by Jimmy's fashion and style, he wanted to break the cycle of being his own touring impersonator. Little Richard wasn't no rehash of the same old shit. He was the real thing, brother, and he was going to get deeper into that rock and roll. And so in 1969, at the Atlantic City racetrack in Mays Landing, New Jersey, just weeks before Woodstock defined a generation, audiences witnessed the rebirth of the rock and roll savior, little Richard. He told the crowd at the Atlantic City Pop Festival that he was the best thing to come out of Macon. Forget about

artist Redding, forget about James Brown, and there was only one king. And then, he proved it. He closed the festival like the royal supernova that he was. Zero residual 1950s kits. Two drummers in a horn section send songs like Lucille into the jam band Stratosphere. Tempos were furious. The interplay between musicians inspired, and Richard jumped from the top of the piano, ripped his mirrored shirt from his sweaty body, fell to his knees to testify. He was back, baby. But with a return to that rock and roll lifestyle, meant a return to temptation. Occupational hazards. Rock and roll meant sex, lots and lots of sex.

And now, on a second pass through the music business in the late 60s and 70s, rock and roll also meant drugs, not just weed, PCP, heroin, cocaine. Richard was way beyond bad and didn't even realize it. He was singing and screwing at a feverish pace. More concerning than the sex was his drug habit. Most days, he was so messed up he couldn't feel anything. Couldn't feel his bare feet on the shag carpet. Couldn't feel his hands run down a naked thigh.

Couldn't feel enough to get hard. He was draining $1,000 a day on his drug habit. He went through money so fast that he had to borrow it. He hit up his friend Larry Williams, the singer-songwriter that specialty had brought him when Richard threw his ring into Sydney Harbor. Larry was just out of the slammer, having done time for drug dealing, it was working on a musical comeback of his own.

Larry loaned Richard a pretty penny and wasn't just a drop in the bucket. It was the whole bucket. Larry came around to Richard's place looking for a general idea of when he could get repaid. He didn't get any answers. He only found a disoriented Richard wasted on his cash. Larry was fed up. He wanted answers. More importantly, he wanted his money back. Where's my fucking money, Richard? Richard said nothing. Zonked. Larry pulled a 38 stub-nosed revolver from his jacket and pointed it directly at Richard's bare chest. Richard put his hands up, shook where he stood. The sweat beat it around his exquisite mustache.

His pompadour, once a thing of windswept beauty flopped over his forehead like a deflated wig. I swear to God, Richard, you sober your ass up and find me my goddamn money. Larry Williams was thundering now. He cocked the pistol for good measure. Richard heard the hammer pull back and fell to his knees. He, little Richard, the originator. the king, the queen. He rolled the damn rules of rock and roll, and yet he had no money to show for it. Blame it on the drugs. Blame it on the bad contracts. Blame it on the lawsuits. Blame it on the

first time he walked away from it at all at the height of his success. Blame it on the times. Nobody was interested in Little Richard anymore. Even the voices of Angel and Evil had gone silent. He was coaked up, alone, broke, and damn near close to getting his head shot off by Larry Williams. Richard was sure Larry would pull the trigger. Larry was fucking crazy. He had that look in his eyes. Richard had seen that look before, seen it in the eyes of the men skulking for kicks on the streets of Macon, and the eyes of the women backstage who needed a thrill. Seen it in the eyes of Buddy Holly and other angel-dusted orgy-goers, desperate, sweaty, horned up. Larry Williams would pull the trigger, blow Richard's head wide open.

Richard squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the shot, waited for the fatal clang of the pistols hammer to deliver him from evil. A wamp bobble-loob, a wamp. Richard opened his eyes. Larry Williams lowered the pistol to his side. Get me my money, Richard. Next time, only one of us walks out of here. The voice of Angel may have stopped talking to Richard, but she was showing him, showing him what would happen.

Richard knew how close to death he was. He knew Larry Williams wasn't fucking around. Richard pulled the scratch together and repaid his debt, and then, once again, denounced rock and roll as the devil's music, said it was demonic, said it descended from voodoo, said that it was voodoo, pure evil. He called homosexuality a sickness, a sickness that he had suffered with from an early age, a disease that he had to cure. There was no balancing the duality for Richard. He couldn't be

gay and be godly. He couldn't sing Tudy-Fruity on a Saturday night and then sing church hymns on a Sunday morning. It was one or the other black or white, good or bad, angel or evil. Little Richard doesn't sing the devil music no more. And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland, ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at disgraceland pod.

Rockerola. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic. guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yelloo.

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